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2:53 p.m. - May 06, 2002 (the subject header is a line from "Mostly Michael") Dear friends, your friend Stacey is a birdbrain. How, you ask, is this true? Well, despite Stacey's ability to sleep for twelve hours last night, the long sleep did not still left her brain on permanent hibernation for the day. This condition existed even after she took a nice warm shower, which usually has the effect of revitalizing her sleepy brain cells. However, it was clear that the day was off to a strange start as Stacey was blow-drying her hair. As her blowdryer was pointed at her head, whisking away dampness, Stacey was reading the back of her L'Oreal spray gel bottle. She read, "For an unstructured look: Spritz evenly on damp hair and fingerstyle hair into shape. Air dry or use blow-dry diffuser." Since there was not much literary scope in reading the backs of gel bottles, Stacey moved onto the next L'Oreal product on her shelf, a tube of Extra Hold Gel-Fluid. She read, "Anwendung in feuchtem oder trockenem Haar." Her brain cells lit up and the young woman thought, "Oh, wow, was that Spray Gel bottle written in English?" So she checked the label, and was thrilled that it was in English. So while blow-drying her hair, Stacey thought about how amusing it was to find a bottle of spray-gel in English, and looked at the front of the bottle. She felt really smart after doing so, since there was a price sticker that proudly proclaimed: "Marc's: $2.89." After that, things may or may not have gone downhill, depending on your perspective. However, it does make for an interesting day in the otherwise prosaic life of our heroine. She did manage, however, to finally speak to her professor, Frau Voit, whose class she took for credit the previous semester. However, Frau Voit did not have her "Proseminare Zeugnis", which is the equivilent of a report card for the class. Stacey was asked to bring another blank Pro-Seminare Zeugnis to Frau Voit, for which she will be reimbursed. Frau Voit was also nice enough to congratulate Stacey on her final exam; although the student's answers were not exactly what Frau Voit wanted (more concrete examples), she was nonetheless impressed. Since Stacey's class was half an hour after her meeting with her professor, she decided to wait in the building and read a little bit. At 2 PM, Stacey went to her classroom to attend class. No one showed up. She looked at her class schedule and belatedly realized that her class was meeting at Johanneskirchen, a school for the hearing impaired. Knowing that it would take at least half an hour to get to the school from her building, Stacey decided to just go grocery shopping instead. After all, she really doesn't need credit for her classes this semester. On the way to the grocery store, Stacey decided to withdraw 20 Euros from her banking account. She withdrew the money, took her ATM card and left, strolling in the sunshine and looking in shop windows on the way to the small grocery store. After selecting most of the ingredients for making Pasta Carbonara, Stacey was waiting in line when she realized that she had taken only her ATM card from the machine, but left her 20 Euros in the machine. Stacey sighed, thinking that it was lucky that she still had some money in her wallet. The strange thing is that Stacey was not angry about this incident; only very sheepish. Even though she knew that the money would be gone, she decided to see if the ATM was still waiting expectantly for her to retrieve her cash. So she walked back. Her hunch was right; she had made another person very happy with his or her unexpected wealth. So Stacey went to Karstadt to buy parmesan cheese, which the small grocery store did not have. Stacey paid for her parmesan cheese and went to the U-Bahn platform. As she was waiting, Stacey was thinking about reorganizing her kitchen cabinets, she realized that she had forgotten one of the most essential ingredients for pasta carbonara: pasta. So as the train was pulling to a stop, Stacey heaved a sigh and went back to Karstadt to buy a package of pasta noodles. With feelings of relief, Stacey went to the train platform to catch her train. And, as she was on the way home, the tired young woman realized she also forgot to buy olive oil to make french dressing for the salad that was going to accompany the pasta she was going to make for dinner. She groaned inwardly, but decided to sally forth to her home, put away her groceries, and head back out to buy some olive oil. Which she did, while muttering under her breath. This time, she decided to go to Alte Heide, one stop over, to the grocery store there (since she heard there were three there, but she had never been grocery shopping at Alte Heide). Luckily, she found the grocery store, which was a short walk from the stop, and she did find the olive oil, but it was about 8 Euros per bottle. So she walked some more, attempting to find another grocery store that would sell this particular staple for a more reasonable price. She didn't find another grocery store; however, she found another U-Bahn station and took a train back to Karstadt, where she did buy a bottle of cheap olive oil, which probably tastes the same as the 8 Euro bottles, anyway. Despite her Pasta Carbonara being a dismal, though edible, flop, Stacey has still been experiencing her day with the sort of detached amusement that comes with a general run of idiocy, bad luck, as well as good luck. She did, for instance, receive three emails from different Fulbrighters in Germay. One is getting married in four days (she was already engaged but Tim asked her if she wanted to get married when she went back to Boston for a job-interview); another told Stacey about a school near him in Frankenthal that she coul potentially visit. If she decides to do so, she can stay with him and his wife. The third email was not very exciting, but it was nice to hear from her. Markus, an acquaintance (Stacey's not sure if they are friends or not; it's hard sometimes to tell with these German people) said he was going to Milan on the 29th of May for a conference and asked Stacey if she wanted to drive with him there. She hopes that if they don't have to pay for too much, then she might go to Milan and surprise her friend, Karen, who is a featured speaker at this one-day convention. If she can make it there, she's sure going to have a hard time keeping the secret to herself. Now your friend's day is at its end, and she hopes that she does not have too many weird adventures such as these in the coming days. THE END (or is it?)
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