On average, I am an excellent multi-tasker. A professional even. All those years of school doing homework, texting, listening to music or watching a movie, and hanging out with my roommates truly honed my skills. When I made it to Longwood, things were no different. I had to juggle watering, answering questions, perpetual hose problems, and mentoring high schoolers all at the same time. On one particular day, however, I found myself completely overwhelmed and unable to handle everything that was being thrown at me. Blame it on the heat. Blame it on my unusually low level of concentration. Blame it on the promise given me that I could get in the lily pools as soon as I was finished watering the hibiscus. Whatever melts your chocolate. So here I am in the 98 degree 98% humidity rose house watering the hibiscus when a family walks through. Considering the fact that thousands of people visit Longwood everyday, I didn't really pay any special attention to this family until the son asked if I could spray him in the face with my watering wand (that's not a typical request). I brushed it off as a joke. I mean seriously...surely he knows that's not a good idea. Not only do we use untreated water, but I also had the fertilizer on. Then, his mother starts in on me. While I'm politely telling her no, a man interrupts and starts preaching to me about callings. He's asking me if I feel close to God while I'm working at Longwood, if horticulture is my calling, and if I appreciate God making the world so beautiful with plants. About two thirds of the way through his sermon (I call it that because he was wearing a clerical collar and is therefore qualified to preach), I look up and that kid is misting his face with the water coming out of a hole in the hose. Really people? Really? So I interrupt my new buddy who is now trying to save my soul to save this kid's life (or at least his vision). When all the hubbub died down, I was left dumbfounded. Did that seriously just happen or was it a figment of my dehydrated imagination? Nope it was reality. I finished watering shortly afterwards and was able to retreat to the comfort of the lily pools for the rest of the day.
After a day like today, all I want to do is go home and relax until someone comes up with a dinner plan or evening activity, but my roommate MacKenzie had other plans for our house. On my way home, I receive a text from her saying that she found ants in the kitchen and that we need to be more "cleansly". Yeah, ok, I'll be sure to do that as soon as I look up the word cleansly in Webster ::deletes text without replying:: So, I walk in the house (completely ignoring the new sign that says to take off work boots before entering) and head towards the kitchen for a Gatorade. As soon as I walked through the doorway from the dining room to the kitchen all hell broke loose. MacKenzie was running around mass-cleaning every surface she could find mumbling about ants and crumbs and who knows what else. I didn't even have to say hey before she started in on me about how nasty our house is and how no one cares about cleaning anymore and how someone had hidden her broken bat from her without telling her about it. Being the non-confrontational person that I am, I decide to stand there and take one for the team. I figured she needed to rant about it then all would be right in the world for awhile until she found something to bitch at poor Katie about. So I endure the yelling and the passive aggressive comments for about 5 minutes and just when I think I'm off the hook she throws a curve ball at me. She starts crying. Woah. Panicking. Do I console her? Do I get her a tissue? Do I leave the room and let her work it out herself? I'm completely frozen in place wondering why she's crying about ants when Emma walks in the house. Hallelujah! The rest is all a blur until MacKenzie takes refuge in her room for about an hour. You'd think she would be calming down from all the hysteria, but I think she was fuming instead. People started congregating at our house to go swimming on the Brandywine River as an after-work-we're-all-tired-and-hot activity, which turned out to be one of the best ideas we had the entire summer. We got lost in a detour that took us 30 minutes out of the way. I got pulled down river by the rip tide around the dam, and Andrew and Victor had to swim down to rescue me. We explored up stream and all got covered in riverweed. Justin found a pair of broken sunglasses (the first of many pairs he collected as the summer went on) and wore them like a pirate eye patch the whole time. Emma scraped her butt on the rocks when she got sucked in by the rip tide. We seriously couldn't have planned a more hilarious trip. Afterwards, we decided to celebrate our outting with Mexican ice cream. Score! I sampled the new shredded cheese flavor, which had chunks in it, but wasn't impressed enough to pay $2.50 for a whole cup of it. Shredded cheese you might ask? I couldn't make that up even if I tried.
Best Conversation of the Day:
Jason: How come you're throwing away the stork cut-out?
MacKenzie: Because somebody hid my broken bat behind it without telling me.
::long, very awkward pause during which Katie and I are trying not to laugh::
Emma: Yeah...sorry about that...
::another long, very awkward pause during which Andrew is trying not to look guilty because he's the one that broke the bat::
Jason: Soooo...Can I have it?
