Thursday Night, Day Zero

The day started on a rocky note when both Emily and Joe woke up with fevers. She stayed home from school with him, but he had a 12:30 class -- a good two hours before I'd be home. Joe called his mom to come down even earlier than she'd already planned. And she did, so things worked out there.

I left school at 2pm and drove home to load my van. Picked up my friend, Dana, around 3pm and we headed up to Sewell, NJ to meet up with some of our team, and our team captain's husband Tom. Met up with SK and M'Risa (and Tom) and headed up to Willow Grove to our hotel.

Got there safe and sound (sadly we weren't able to get the Woodchuck Cider truck to pull over and offer us free samples). Met up with our other overnighting teammates and divvied up the two hotel rooms. As we were all starving, we headed on over to Carrabba's for some serious Carb Loading.

Our waiter, Jason, announced it was only his 2nd day flying solo as soon as he came up to our table. He was very nice, but obviously nervous and inexperienced. We ordered some wine and lots of glasses of ice water (this is an important detail). We wanted to pre-hydrate as much as possible. There were eight of us somewhat smooshed around two small tables pushed together. I saw Jason to my right trying to find an open spot in front of M'Risa to put her water down. So, I tried to help him out by picking up my menu and holding very still. This is where the obviously inexperienced part came in. Rather than pulling a glass from the center of the tray, he picked up the one closest to him. SPLOOOOSH!!! CRASH!!!! EEEK! Six very cold (!!!), very full glasses of water crashed into my back, completely soaking me from neck to bottom. I let out a tiny squeal and held very still, trying to keep my shirt from touching my back anywhere I could. (then "helpful" folks started trying to dab the water up and pressed the freezing fabric into me)

By this time, we had the attention of Jason's trainer, the restaurant manager and ... well, Jason looked like he wanted to crawl into a hole and die. The manager gave me a free Carrabba's polo shirt (score!) and I went into the bathroom to change. I reassured everyone that I wasn't going to call corporate or scream at anyone. These things happen. And, we tipped him well, anyway.

After dinner, we went back to the Hampton Inn and sort of settled in for some TV and sleep. SK proceeded to customize her team shirts by cutting off the sleeves and making a V-neckline. She was doing a nice tidy job of it, until she gashed her finger. She did the automatically-stick-it-in-your-mouth thing and then pulled it out saying, "Doesn't seem too bad!." Then Dana cried, "Um, SK! You're dripping onto the bed!" And she was. Yikes! She went into the bathroom to clean up and the water splashed blood kind of everywhere. Looked like a grisly scene from CSI (which we were watching at the time, coincidentally).

After she bandaged herself up, the excitment was over and we pretty much all went to sleep. Alarm for Day One was set for 4:30am.

--End--