London Fog

My sophomore year of college I was driving home from Spokane to Bellevue, maybe for Thanksgiving? I stopped at the McDonald’s in Ellensburg for chicken nuggets. I had it all worked out with the French fries on that mini dashboard where the speedometer was. I was in my new Ford Escort. Teal, with roll down windows and front wheel drive. (That’s a story for a different time!) Back to the French fries. And the ketchup… Where was the ketchup? There’s no way to enjoy McDonald’s fries without ketchup, so I had that rigged up too as a dipping sauce nearby. Yes, eating AT McDonald’s would have been easier, but I was…19? That might be important later in the story…

As ketchup does — UM, sidebar - why do so many of my personal stories involve condiments??? 😂 Anyway, as ketchup does, it dripped. On my white Winnie-The-Pooh shirt. Well. I’m a bit of a laundry freak, and what I know about white anythings is that you have a limited time to act. I opened my coke (mind you, I have not pulled over), got some ice cubes, swished the coke off in my mouth, and proceeded to smear them all over my ketchup shirt. It took MANY ice cubes, but the ketchup finally gave in. Victory was mine. As I got closer to the pass, the temperature started to drop, and my wet shirt was verrrrrry cold. Your brain is not fully developed at 19, so while the next part of the story is OFF THE RAILS, it seemed like the obvious solution at the time. I decided to change shirts. While driving! I took off my shirt, and before I could secure another shirt, the cold temperature turned into a blizzard. A white-knuckled-grip-on-the-steering-wheel blizzard. And so I drove through the pass without a shirt on. This is why I don’t carpool.  Ha!

Fast forward to today. Conferences done and dusted, plans made, and we are vectoring north to catch a plane. We’re flying out of Seattle tonight, landing in Fort Lauderdale in the morning, and cruising to the Caribbean in the afternoon. We promise to try and bring back the sunshine. 

We stopped in DuPont for a bathroom break at Starbucks. I vastly prefer to stop at Farelli’s and order the Northwest pizza, but we did just have lunch… Anyway, we both got London Fogs. Have you had this? First, you have to talk in  British accent when you’re drinking it - that’s half the fun! The other is that it’s earl grey tea with steamed milk. Delicious. It’s not quite high tea, but it does the trick. 

Anyway, we’re rocketing along I-5, and I took a sip, and it literally exploded. If you didn’t say “literally” with a British accent, you’re not doing it right! Anyway, I spilled tea ALL over myself. My white sweatshirt, my pants — the whole thing. I will be wearing this outfit for the next 24 hours, so it’s a real horror show. I proceeded to dump half a water bottle all over my person to try and get the stain out. I think the stain is still there, but you can’t tell as much because my entire sweatshirt is wet. And my shirt underneath. And my bra underneath that if we’re being honest. But my 46 year old brain IS fully developed and so I have kept my shirt on. Louise is telling me that no one is going to be looking at me on a night fight. Sigh. Like that’s any consolation!

What is a consolation is that in 24 hours I won’t need this sweatshirt because we will be basking sunshine! Goodbye Oregon “spring”;  Thelma and Louise are off to the Caribbean!