gimme sympathy

I am not a person who is late for things. In fact, I often strive to be early, even if it means sitting around in my car for 10 minutes so as not to inconvenience anyone by showing up before they were ready. I don't do fashionably late, either. I've always felt like it was a cop-out. So on a scale of 1 to 10, my hatred of being late scores an easy 10. Now imagine how I must feel about standing people up or not showing up somewhere I said I'd be. It's hovering somewhere around a 13 or 14, atleast! It is just not something I do! It's something that drives me BONKERS when I see other people do it. I wonder, "What planet do they live on that they think that kind of thing is ok?" Anyway, it's beyond a pet peeve. This is the kind of thing that gives me a colossal headache behind my right eye, thumping and pulsating. Ouch.

Yesterday I was all dolled up and all psyched to drive to Mercer Island (Seattle area) and attend a clothes swap for fat chicks. I was elated. The girl hosting it was someone I had met earlier this year at a brunch in Seattle, also for fat chicks. We fat chicks really dig sticking together.

She sent me her address last week so I could get some nice, easy to follow directions from Google Maps. I printed up the directions without really looking at them and headed out, fresh baked cookies and 8 bags of clothing in hand. The directions led me down a dead-end street with a cul-de-sac with a basketball hoop. Excellent. I called Seth and had him look up exactly where I was so he could lead me to where I needed to be. Would have worked great if it weren't for the fact that Google Streetview put her address smack dab in the center of an intersection. So either the address I had was typed slightly wrong, or google is effed, yo. I drove around the area for about half an hour, just to see if I could locate the apartment building by accident. No luck. And unfortunately she hadn't given me her phone number, so I couldn't just call her up and ask, "Hey! Where the fuck you live, man?!" 250 miles, 10 gallons of gas, and over 6 hours on the road... all for naught.

I hate these situations. It's not anyone's fault, it was just a collection of bad directions, not enough planning, and confusing dead end streets lined with McMansions. Gah.