I Believe They Are Called Headless Chicken Moments
So it was one of those days. I woke up with one dog on my arm and one dog on my leg, which means that I had lost the feeling in both limbs. I knew that it was going to be a rough day. I don’t think that I needed a much clearer sign than that. I had nothing to write about, and I’m just not able to tackle the next part of the story. It’s very intense, and I’m really not up to it yet.
So this leads me to somthing called headless chicken moments. It’s a term that I found on another site, and it refers to those moments in one’s life of such utter stupidity that you couldn’t possibly repeat the moment if you tried. The actual term is based on a real-life chicken that lived after its head was cut off because it wasn’t in fact decapitated properly, so even though his head was gone, he was able to continue living and became a chicken celebrity, if you like that sort of thing.
I know that I have had many such HC moments (I really don’t like the term very much); I’m just having a hard time pinning down the details. Couldn’t we use something like “Moments I’d Like to Forget,” or “Dumb and Dumber Moments in Time”? What do you think?
So I’ve put off writing this post until I could remember some of my better HC moments that I would want to share, and here they are in all of their embarrassing glory:
Moment #1
I once went to an information session with my program’s director. This was my job, by the way. It was a new location for us. The room was not one that I was used to, but I had been told in advance that the room contained an overhead projector and a laptop projector, so the only thing that I needed to bring was my flash drive with my presentation on it. So, we arrived early to set up (I had brought my laptop just in case but had left it in the car). and could not find the laptop connection. Luckily for me, the Ed.D in Education couldn’t figure out the connection either, so I wasn’t made to feel too terribly stupid.
On the way out of the room, I noticed a small notice on the top right of the board on a piece of paper that was about six inches wide. It explained how to access the laptop. The instruction were blocked by the two rolling carts that contained other A/V equipment. Great location for instructions.
Moment #2
I was certain that I had lost my glasses, as in prescription glasses. I was wearing them at the time which Alexis pointed out to me.
Moment #3
I had gone to Costco and bought a pretty large amount of groceries and other things. For some reason, when the boys unloaded the back of the Trooper, they overlooked the milk, which I did not find until the next day when I got in the car to go to work. Summertime. Overnight. Milk . . .
Moment #4
Paul and I once left the house and got in the car before we realized that we had left Alexis inside the house asleep in her crib. She was just such a quiet baby.
Moment #5
I once rode my bike to my mother-in-law’s house when she was watching Alexis. But then, I hadn’t thought about how we would get home. We put my bike in the back of her car, and she drove us both home.
Moment #6
After Corey and I had been dating for a while, he decided to take the boys and me up to Ohio to meet his family for Christmas. It was already a pretty stressful situation as he had not told his father about me or my children, but his mother knew all about us. So we packed up the car, and got on the interstate, and I asked Corey how long it took to drive to Ohio, to which he replied, “I have no idea. I’ve never driven before.” I very calmly asked, “Do you know how to get there?” He said, “Uhm, no.”
I suggested that we stop and purchase a map, which we did. I then looked at the gas tank, and suggested that we get some gas while we were stopped. He asserted that we were fine. We took an exist in Richmond to find someplace to eat dinner as we were already so far behind schedule. As we were crossing a bridge in a completely unfamiliar part of Richmond, we ran out of gas. The boys were still quite young, so they were relatively freaked out by this.
This is one of his headless chicken moments, and I think that it counts as two.
Moment #7
I was going to a staff meeting in D.C. I was wearing a cream-colored turtle neck Anne Klein sweater. About half-way there, I spilled coffee all the way down the front of the sweater. I stopped at the next exit, and went in a gas station restroom. I took off the sweater and washed just the part that had coffee on it in the sink, and then I blotted it with paper towels. Then I put the half wet sweater back on and turned the heat on full blast for the rest of the ride to D.C. I arrived late and freezing, with my sweater still pretty damp and obviously stained.
Moment #8
When I was leaving my job with the government services firm in Arlington, a very large group of people took me out for a going away lunch party. My big boss was there, so there was tacit approval for drinks all around since he ordered pitchers of margaritas and shots of something. There were just two problems. I was the safe keeper for that floor of the building, which meant that I held the passwords, codes, and safe combination. I also had to be debriefed that day as I held a secret clearance. Well, everyone had forgotten about those two events. When they brought me back to the office around 3 or so, I was completely and totally happy. I did remember the safe combination and codes, and managed to sign my signature and release the safe, although at the time, it was not considered to be “an official looking signature.”
The debriefing was a totally different matter. The security guy came in my office, closed the door, and started to ask me questions. Then he took one look at me, and said, we really cannot do this now, can we? I said, ” nope, sure can’t.” He called my big boss, put me on the phone, big boss said, are you in any shape to answer any questions? I said, “what do you think?” Big boss said hand the phone to X. I hear big boss say to X, “consider her debriefing complete.” X walks out of my door and shuts it. I start giggling hysterically, call Kathleen and Luke, and by the time they walk down the floor to my office, I’m on the floor.
Not the most professional moment of my life, but one of the funniest ever.
Moment #9
And finally, for now, there was a time that I was certain that I had lost my small ID wallet, the one in which I put my driver’s license and bank card. Corey asked me if I had looked in my purse. I answered testily that of course I had looked in my wallet. I had people looking under the bed, under chairs, in the sofa, in the cars. Corey asked me again if it could be in my purse. I said that no, it could not be in my purse, but if he wanted to look, he could. So he took everything out of my purse, and there, at the very bottom, was the wallet. The lining of my purse was black; just about everything in my purse was black, and the wallet was black. I was so angry at myself because I really had looked in my purse at least twice and did no feel it or see it.
And so, for now, that will be enough of my headless chicken moments. More later. Peace.
Lola's Curmudgeonly Musings 
