IT’S BEEN 15 DAYS WITHOUT A SINGLE POST from me. Can you guess why?

• I was walking the strip in Vegas
• I was swimming in the ocean California
• I was busy riding rides at Universal Studios
• I was at my parents house on Thanksgiving enjoying the family company
• I am lazy.

Actually, all of the above are true. I went on vacation and took a blogging hiatus, but I didn’t tell a single soul. Because if I told somebody, then I was really taking a break and then I’d really feel guilty.

It’s an Aubrey thing, guilt.

I’m working on it.

I’ll be posting about my amazing vacation and various other things shortly, but in the mean time, I’ve been noticing a lot of conversations come across differently than they should. Miscommunication errors, if you will, and they are absolutely hilarious. One such example happened last Friday night when Kevin took me on a date to Temple Square. It was the first night they turned on the Christmas lights and the grounds were flooded with people. We made our way slowly around the Temple and noticed a single, solitary building to the north that hadn’t been lit up. It was odd really, to be standing surrounded by thousands of stranded lights on every tree and have a dark building right smack in the middle. He took a photo and texted it to his sister to see if she could tell us what the building was. We kept walking and ran into a Missionary that informed us the building was the changing and entry room for the attendees when they arrive.

“Have you been through the Temple?” he kindly inquired. I love Missionaries, they are always so friendly.

“Nope,” was our simple reply.

“Oh. Ya’ll married?” bless him, he was a conversationalist.

Another double “nope”.

“Well, do you want to be?” the old man chuckled. I blushed and pushed my hands deeper into the pockets of Kevin’s borrowed jacket, biting my lip to allow him to answer. Yes. . .let him answer, this’ll be interesting.

“. . .Possibly?” Was his reply. He gave me a questioning look and I just smiled.

I can live with possibly.

We talked with the Missionary for a few more minutes (and accidentally insulted his love of the Utes team . . .oops) and began trying to work our way through the crowd back to his car. I’d completely forgotten that he’d texted his sister until his phone started buzzing.

Where are you? Lindsay asked.

At the Salt Lake City Temple, he replied.

Why are you there? We began to realize that texting her saying that we were at the SLC Temple could have been misleading. It’s a popular engagement spot after all, what else would anyone think?

Before he could even respond Lindsay calls and asks, “Did you go to Jared?!”. I’m standing on the other side of Kevin, the side his phone isn’t on and I’m laughing because he repeats what she says.

“Jared? Who — oh! Jared, no no no, we didn’t go to Jared.” By this point I’m dying of laughter and can’t stay out of their conversation.

“Tell her we went to Shane Co.!” I rattled off between my laughing fits.

“We went to Shopko, got her something nice!”

Shopko.

Shopko.

Let me spell that out for you. S-H-O-P-K-O. I literally would have been rolling around on the ground if not for the fear of being stompled by the crowd.

“Yea because Shopko is cheaper than Wal-Mart!” I was done, that was the last I heard of their conversation before I died of laughter.

*If you are wondering what the crap the title of this blog post is, go here. It is Latin for “it does not follow”. Meaning that while we occasionally visit the Temple, we are not engaged…yet.*

IT STARTED WITH A TWITCH. A solitary twitch of my left eye in the early morning hours, letting me know that my cornea was not very happy about the Acuvue contacts (Advanced! With Hydroclear, no doubt) that I had just put in.

But that doesn’t matter. I’d just finished my makeup. Not about to smudge my eyeliner just for the sake of comfort. I’d already spent ten minutes searching for that little tube of black raccoon paint, I was not about to spend another ten minutes reapplying it. Not that I had the time to spare anyway. The alarm clock got my extra safety cushion of time this morning.

So I lied to myself. I squinted, did a few quick blinks and convinced myself I could see perfectly fine. What’s the blur on the side of the road? Surely not my contact. No. It’s the dirt on my sunglasses. Or on my car. Or a bad reflection of the sun.

I’m a good self-liar.

When I got to work I adopted the same  ‘I can see just fine’ mantra that I had on the drive over. Every few minutes my vision would fog over while looking at the computer screen, so I’d blink, rub my eye and then look out the window. Viola. Insta fix.

Around 10:00AM I came to the realization that it’s not so easy to pull a quick contact adjustment during a company meeting. It’s like picking a wedgie in public  – sorry, blame the radio for that comparison, they have a Hanes No Ride Underwear sale going on at Wal-Mart apparently – all I mean is, if it’s in a public place, people will notice any movement. So there I am, in the middle of a large meeting rubbing my eye, dabbing at the corners, tugging at the lashes. And for some odd reason my nose starts running in a knee-jerk type of reaction every time I touch my eyes, and I realize I have to sniff.

I opt to quit breathing instead.

That lasted about two seconds. I pause until someone is talking, duck my head and let out what I thought was a quiet sniffle. Not even the full blown, loud, elephant trumpet-like snort that my body is telling me I need to do. Just a “this only will work for two seconds and my nose will run again” type of sniff. Turns out the talker was posing a question and not a statement. My sniff was perfectly synchronized with the post question silence.

And now people believe that I cry during meetings.

Think this could get better? Oh yes. It gets so much better. I run to my car to get a little contact solution. I admit it.  SO MY CONTACT IS A LITTLE DIRTY, OKAY?! And now, after cleaning it, it’s a tad bit torn.

T-O-R-N.

Ripped. Deceased. Cut right down the middle. And I’m standing in the bathroom, literally holding my vision in my hand and realizing that without this little clear dome I am almost legally blind. You could be right in front of my face and I wouldn’t be able to recognize you. Which also means I am one contact away from not being able to drive anywhere. So next thing I know I’m flying down the freeway, blaring Beyoncé and squinting trying to get a full 180 degree view with one eye. And I start doing this thing. Don’t deny it, you do it too. I’m closing the good eye to see how well I can see out of the bad one. But I don’t just do it once, no. I keep at it like it’s suddenly going to fix itself. The clincher? I’m doing the same thing AT THE SAME TIME with my car alignment. Letting go of the wheel, feeling my car start to pull to the right, nudging it back over, letting go, drifting, moving back, while closing one eye, going blind, opening the good one. Rinse and repeat.

I finally realized I need to be more understanding of other people. To the person at Wal-Mart with the instructional note on his windshield from me stating “Learn how to park!!” I’m sorry. I didn’t realize that you were half blind and had a bad alignment too. Besides, you were probably just there for the Hanes No Ride Underwear.