Good Grief

From an unnamed university in the greater San Francisco Bay Area...

When I travel for work, I infinitely prefer to travel by myself. I'm an only child, and my theory is there are two kinds of only children: ones who love to be alone and ones who can't be alone. I definitely fall into the "love to be alone" category. I lived in a studio for a year in college and people would ask if I got lonely. "Au contraire," I would reply, "sometimes, when I'm out with other people, I fantasize about coming home to my empty apartment." I currently live alone and frequently have the same fantasies, even if I'm out having a great time with my friends.

When I lived abroad, I spent a lot of time alone, which was hard a lot of the time, but also great. I traveled by myself a good deal, and as such, really enjoy being able to walk around a new city alone, taking in the sites and sounds and stopping to check out a shop or museum without having to ask anyone if it sounds good to them.

This is just a lengthy preamble to me complaining about the student that my boss made me take with me on this trip. I didn't want to bring her. I didn't want to bring anyone, but I really didn't want to bring her. She was supposed to come with me on the this trip last year but was beyond wishy washy about committing to a flight time, also didn't want to have to pay up front for the hotel room (we reimburse), and at flaked basically at the last minute. I was over her, but my boss insisted we invite her again.

She was an hour late yesterday, slept through our dinner meet-up, and proceeded to ask me the following questions this morning at breakfast:

1. How does the Super Shuttle know what time to pick us up? (I said that when you book the shuttle, you're supposed to arrange a time to get picked up...she was shocked.)

2. Do we need to check in for our flight today or did we check in for both flights Wednesday?

3. (After I ordered a breakfast item called "The Twos") What is that? I saw it on the menu but didn't know what it was.

4. (After I told her to read the description on the menu which read "2 cakes, 2 eggs, 2 bacon or sausage.") What are cakes? How do you know if you'll get bacon or sausage? Do they surprise you?