Meet Time

Last Saturday I woke up at 6 something to the sound of a loud ringing noise. It was early, stupid early. The sun still had hot curlers in its hair, unwilling to show its face for at least another hour.


With all that ringing, the first thing I did was roll over and swing at my alarm. After a few solid swats with no success, I finally pieced together that the annoying sound was actually coming from the cursed phone, not the alarm.


I creaked an eye open, blinked, blinked again to bring the digital display on the alarm into focus, and read the time.  After that I must say I did a stand up job of totally flipping out.  Performing one of those spastic moves where all my limbs jerk, moving in opposite directions as I scrambled out of bed.


I grabbed at the phone and answered it. Only dial tone met my ear. I stared blankly at the phone as if it were a foreign object. Um, I'm not a morning person, what can I say?


Loud pounding on the front door startled me back into action. My only thought was: Oh no, I'm in hot water! Okay, that's a lie. There were some colorful expletives mixed in there. Don't look at me like that! It was my head, I can think what I want!


Anyway, on with the story!


Let's rewind to the night before, when I'd reluctantly set the alarm for 5 am on the nose. The big plan was for my friend to pick me and my two eldest up at 5:45 am. This way we could arrive at the 7 am swim meet in plenty of time for warm ups.


So it was now 6:04 am.  How in the heck had I managed to sleep through my alarm that has a ringer on it capable of shattering glass.   In retrospect, I suppose I must have hit the off-button, but I have absolutely no recollection of this, nor do I remember taking out my night guard and flinging it across the room in my reckless, semi-conscious parade to the bedroom door. As I perilously slid down the wooden stairs I realized I was holding something in my hand. The telephone, oh right, that's what had woken me from my slumber. Stupidly, I tried to redial the last incoming call, my friend. This just goes to show how out of it I was. Hello! Guess who's pounding on my front door?


I hung up just as I sheepishly opened the door and promised my dear forgiving friend that I'd be ready in 5 minutes. Yeah, right. Twenty five minutes later, we crawled into her car and the six of us headed out (her 2 kiddos are on the Dolphin swim team as well).


Amazingly, we arrived at the natatorium (fancy name for a swimming pool that's indoors)  pretty close to the 7am check in time. And this is where things really got fun.


There was nowhere to sit inside, and outside wasn't any better. There wasn't an area readily available that didn't involve high concentrations of direct sunlight. This was a quandary indeed, considering how it's my life mission to stay out of the sun.  After some shoving and tears, we eventually carved ourselves a little square of shade in one of the entry/exit ways. Yeah, I didn't give a flip about the foot traffic, let them use another door.


And they did. No one complained - lucky for them! With the way my day was turning out, I wasn't exactly in the best of moods. Grrr...


From our perch there was no way to tell what event was taking place, nor did we know who was supposed to be heating up at any given time. In fact, my 8 y/o doesn't know this, but I missed her first race. I totally played this off without speaking one mistruth. Luckily, my friend texted me, telling me she'd come in second. Seriously, it was that crazy! No one was conversing face to face.


I wasn't the only one with bad luck, my poor 11 y/o waited half an hour for his turn to race and they still failed to get him to the block. But don't worry, I badgered the guy on the mic, and then the judges, and when they all said no, I went after the coach.


My son swam against the big boys, 13 & 14 year olds. But as in life, it doesn't matter who wins the race,  it's all about the time spent getting there.