my hideous embarrassment can be seen from space

[I thought I had better own this before anyone else posted to LJ/DW about it!]

Dear all members of the International Cooperative [redacted for extreme embarrassment] Venture and Supper Club,

Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. I am hideously embarrassed and very grateful. Thank you, thank you so much. I am going to go and live in a hole until I stop blushing. Please feel free to mock me about this until the end of time, I entirely deserve it.

love,
Iona

I will tell the whole story when I am less embarrassed. Let me just say that if it weren't for the fact I have the best friends and partner in the entire world, "hideous embarrassment" would be "hideous wailing catastrophe" round about now.

this is what happened

So, this is the story. So you know there is a happy ending, I will tell my side of it first.

Last night, around midnight, I was freaking out about conflicts of law - it's awful, it's awful, I don't understand it, it's doing my head in, etc. So, I thought, let's take a few deep breaths, let's make a jug of (decaf) coffee, let's sit down and go through this. Three hours later, I was thinking, well, I don't know it all and I'll never be a notable conflicts lawyer, but I know more than I did know. Still two topics to go. Okay, thinketh I, I will go to bed, get up at ten thirty, run into the law school and go over a few things, there's another study group at midday, and then the exam at half past one.

Before shutting down the computer, I dropped Shim an email: hi, love, could you give me a call around ten thirty to make sure I'm awake.

I went to bed. Tossed and turned for a couple of hours, finally drifted off.

The next thing I knew, someone was banging on my door shouting, "Iona! Get up! ANDREW CALLED ME FROM ENGLAND!"

I got up, blearily, stumbled to the door sans glasses, opened the door, and said, "...you woke me up what time is it WHAT."

Tobermory marched in and said, "I am going to sit on your couch grading papers while YOU GET IN THE DAMN SHOWER."

It was half past twelve.

Ouch.

Anyway, this is the happy ending - I took a five-minute shower, Tobermory bundled me into the car, and drove me to the law school, I had time to print off my notes before the exam.

Okay, from the other side of the story that I have since heard.

Shim called me at ten thirty. I didn't answer. He tried again. I didn't answer. By eleven - four, in the UK - when I didn't answer yet again, and he'd been calling and calling, Shim talked to gavagai, who talked to forthwritten. Shim and Laura went through my Facebook friends - they knew the South African Siren wasn't here, but Shim sent messages to everyone else he met when he was here - M and E, who are 1Ls and were in a contracts exam, but also to Tobermory (along the lines of hey we met once but I need you to do something) and Laura sent messages to them too (hey, we've never met, but...) and also to people who she knew were definitely in Ithaca, and when that didn't work Shim emailed thingswithwings, who wouldn't be able to make it to me in time, and then finally my letting agency. They didn't know if I was just not answering, or fast asleep, or what, so they called and called. I was fast, fast asleep.

By the time Tobermory came to the door, there were eight people and one limited company across two continents who knew I had an exam this afternoon and WAS STILL IN BED OH GOD. I am mortified. And so, so, grateful. And mortified.

I have been supplied with this highlight of the chat transcript:

forthwritten:oh Ioan, how do you manage to spark an international incident
 
gavagai: lol IN HER SLEEP

The moral of the story: don't be such a cocking idiot as to leave your phone on silent, and never think you aren't loved.