New Jersey?... what exit?

In the spring of our senior year, Mike, Annie and I decided to go up to New Jersey for awhile to watch our teammates compete in NCAAs. We climbed into the Jeep after class on a Wednesday and embarked on the 7ish our trip.

I decided to take an alternate through through Philly instead of straight up the NJ Turnpike to avoid the traffic and general Jersey-ness that is the turnpike. I wasn't entirely familiar with the route, but had directions to take "Exit 7B" off of 95 to begin the detour.

Through Delaware I was a little antsy, not knowing where I was going, awaiting 7B. We got into Pennsylvania, approached Philly, went through Philly, and still, no exit 7. (Actually, when I said earlier that I knew the exit was 7B, that was a lie. 7 was one of my original guesses, but after we passed 7 and realized it wasn't the right exit, I kept guessing - 11? 15? 19? 22? We passed all of these in turn without getting to the right road.)

At this point I was beginning to mildly panic - it was late, we were all tired (Example A: Mike had been asleep in the backseat for at least a couple of hours.) I decided to go with my traditional geographic guru, David. We woke Mike up and I asked him to call David to look at a map. He refused. I asked him again, and he refused again! (Something about midnight being too late to call a college student.) A squabble ensued. Soon enough after this incident, someone realized the exit numbers would reset after we crossed the state line, so we crossed our fingers, and sure enough, exit 7 in New Jersey was the correct exit, and all ended well. We had a great week in Jersey, and headed back to Duke in the Prius, at which point Annie began her favorite new hobby of pointing out any and all Priuses on the road (Prius!)


Well, Mike chose to take this route home for Thanksgiving this year. When I inquired as to how it worked out for him, this is the email I received:

"It did work out. One funny thing was the directions say to get off at exit 7B. However, they mean 7B in New Jersey. Because first you drive through Delaware, and there's not exit 7B. Then you drive through PA...and there's no 7B. Then you start to freak out. And then you exit. Obviously."

"Bachelorette Shenanigans"

Being down here in Beaufort for my cousin's bachelorette party reminded me of post-graduation celebrations... especially when my sister showed up with a penis pinata. Apparently when you use flour and not glue you have to use a significant amount of salt so the pinata won't mold... oops.



It made me proud of our own construction. Her's was two feet long... compared to our, what, almost 4??? Very nice. Plus we got to make Vanessa and David feel super uncomfortable while helping us make it.

Beaufort after graduation

I try to keep a repertoire of funny moments in my head so that when I'm having a bad day, there's always something there to think about and laugh at.

After graduation, a bunch of us went down to the beach house to hang out. On our first day there, it was ridiculously windy out so Alli figured it'd be nicer to open all of the windows in the house rather than turn on the AC. So, all day long, we had a really nice breeze coming in off of the marsh to keep us cool.

Fast forward 10 hours.

So, at bedtime I crawled into bed with a book and a glass of soda on my night table. I read for a while and then reached over to take a drink out of said glass. To my horror, there were 3 small black bugs in the glass. I was pretty surprised because they had definitely not been there before. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a few bugs crawling on the wall right behind me. The same little black bugs. Hrm. I noticed what appeared to be a trail of them reaching upwards, so my eyes followed the line to the ceiling. And then I saw it.

My mouth actually fell open in a silent scream. In the corner of the ceiling, there was a black mass that entirely blocked out the white wall behind it. A huge mess of tiny little bugs. I spazzed out (big surprise, I know). I took all of my stuff in the room and threw it into the walk-in closet and shut the door. Then I quickly went to go find Alli. Alli was going to bed with Susan(ow OW) in another room. I told her about it and I think she thought I was overreacting. She found some bug spray and followed me back to my room, where she too was horrified by the mass of bugs. She stood on the bed and sprayed the corner, then we both quickly fled the room.

I was going to share their bed with them, but then susan, alli and myself realized that the bug problem was probably not localized to just my room. So, we looked up at the ceiling corners in their room and sure enough, bugs. Not quite as densely packed as in my room, but still a shit ton of them were there. The corners of the room were further from the bed here, so Alli had to stand on night tables and such. We decided that this was not the Cindy Schafer approved method for dealing with bugs.

As she stood on the nightstand to attack the last corner of flies, I think she leaned too far over the nightstand, it shifted and she fell hard onto it. Unfortunately for Al, the little table hadn't fallen in front of or behind her, but rather was still between her legs. So, as she fell...she landed on the corner of the wooden table in a sensitive place. Like the good friends we are, Susan and I cracked up. I can still picture both the fall, as well as Alli's attempt to sort of hop off of the table from the awkward position she found herself in. Oh man. I miss laughing like that.