Texas??? Not me...

"Are you from Texas?" one of my staff asked me this afternoon. Hmmm...not sure where that one came from. It definitely isn't my accent. I grew up in New England and never managed to acquire the local accent. I've never lived in TX, just visited relatives and the MS office, so I REALLY didn't have a Texas accent. So what could it be?

Ah, the armadillo earrings. I bought them because they remind me of a fun trip with good friends...

After a summer at camp, two friends and I headed to Virginia for a trip that would include 2 days of job interviews/apartment hunting for me and lots of camping the other days. The initial day with an interview and apartment hunting proved to be quite boring. We looked around, I asked all the questions, and my friends just tagged along. That was completely out of character for them. Before we headed out on the second day of apartment hunting, I set out the guidelines. Both of them were to act as though they were the ones searching for an apartment, exploring, asking questions, and making observations.

Kelly took this challenge seriously. She'd heard the questions and typical answers frequently enough to ask them herself, but it was always with a twist. An innocent question about the pet policy (pets under 10# permitted) led to a follow-up question for me: "Jean, how much does your armadillo weigh?" Kelly also determined that the tub capacity was adequate for my tie-dying hobby, while Mandy inspected the closet over the stairwell and established that it offered a satisfactory spot for someone who wanted to assume the thinking position, lying down with her legs extended up the wall. I think she was the one measuring rooms for my loom and attempting thunder-thigh ballet upstairs to make sure sound didn't carry (or maybe that was me). We weren't convinced that my imaginary, 6'6" boyfriend Bart would clear the light fixture in the dining room and unfortunately, he wouldn't be allowed to come visit on his Harley.

The poor woman showing us around seemed a bit flustered, but I'd like to think she caught on to the joke and from time to time tells the story of these crazy women who came one day to look for an apartment...