This past weekend I had the pleasure of going to my Alma mater, Baylor University to celebrate Homecoming 2015. Unfortunately, many alumnae were not in attendance due to the severe weather caused by Hurricane Patricia. Who would have thought the weather warning would have deterred so many people? Then again, I know how I feel about the rain so I guess I should have expected it. I was really looking forward to hanging out with old friends that I rarely get to see. Especially, since this was the first time I didn’t have to take every mode of transportation to get there.
I was so excited about taking this road trip with my friends that I wasn’t even worried about the severe weather which was headed our way. That was until a friend of mine called me on Friday afternoon. She had the nerve to try to sway me into staying home. I guess I should mention that said “friend” was scheduled to travel with me and two other friends to Waco. She called me with her very sweet, innocent voice and said “T-shirt, (that’s the nickname she gave me) is it really that serious? Did you hear that the weather was suppose to be bad?” I politely said to her, “Girl, I’m from the streets of NY, ain’t no rain gonna stop me. This is gonna be an adventure. Just let go and let God.” We both laughed but secretly I was a little nervous because it floods down here and I can’t swim.
It took us forever to get to Waco that evening because we stopped at Chick Fil A, Houston Premium Outlets and then made a wrong turn. I know what you’re thinking. Why did they stop at the outlets? Well, if you must know. I needed some rain boots. Everyone else in the car said they had some so I needed some too. So I ran in Off Saks Fifth Avenue and got what exactly what I needed.
When we finally arrived to Waco it was raining of course. And when we pulled up to our hotel which shall remain nameless, I secretly wished I could sleep in the car. As a hotel snob, I violated rule #1. If your hotel door leads you outdoors your hotel is low budget. What made matters worse was when we walked into the room we all had the same look of disgust plastered on our faces. The ironing board had stains on it and the desk chair looked like they tried to salvage it from the local junkyard. See below.
We each agreed that since we were only staying there one night, we would make the best of the situation. And when we thought about not going to the party due to the monsoon, we quickly decided it was either stay in the room longer or go to the party. So we chose to go to the party.
When we arrived at the party location which turned out be a bar, I said to myself, “Self, you must be crazy to have put on a dress in the rain when you should have worn jeans and rain boots.” O well, I was not going back to the Bates motel, so I made the best of the situation. Even though there weren’t a lot of people at the party, I enjoyed catching up with the few who braved the storm.
The highlight of the evening was my attempt to smoke a cigar! Let’s just say it was more of a epic fail because I didn’t like it and felt like I almost choked to death.
After the party, we stopped by Taco Cabana and got something to eat because we needed some food to soak up the libations we had. And when I went to use the bathroom and the lights flickered as if there was going to be a blackout, I immediately sobered up. In that moment, I had a flashback to the NY blackout in 2003. I never thought I would be so ready to get back to the Bates motel to go to the after party with DJ Pillow and MC Sheets.
The next morning we quickly got ready and shared this breakfast of champions on the way to the Football game against Iowa State.
I knew as I was sitting in the rain that I must really like my friends and Baylor University because I despise the rain and would have never done anything like this a few years ago. All in all, even though this was a short visit to Baylor which wasn’t too eventful, it allowed me to spend time with good friends. I also had a chance to make new great memories filled with laughs and other stories I won’t tell because you had to be there.
Hope you are able to have such great experiences at your school’s homecoming and if your school doesn’t have such homecoming activities, go to another school’s homecoming and pretend like you went to school there. I’m sure no one would ever know the wiser! Until next time…
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