Racing the garbage collection trucks
Sister Mo is out of town for the Thanksgiving weekend and yesterday she asked if I would go to her place to feed her fish and put her garbage cans out on the curb. The trucks come early ’round these parts so you really should get the cans out on the previous day. Of course, I got wrapped up in some neighborhood fun yesterday and completely forgot to get to Mo’s place.
This morning I was making coffee at 6:45am and going over my mental “to have already done” list, feeling good about having gotten my cans out, my neighbor’s cans (also away for Thanksgiving) and getting ready to let neighbor TQ’s cats out when all of a sudden I realized that I had not tended to Mo’s place at all. You know that feeling when you’ve forgotten something and while it’s possible to pull it off in time, it is *highly* unlikely that you’ll get everything together? I got that sinking, panicked feeling immediately, mostly because the kids were still in bed and Kerri was gone for the morning at the gym. I had very few options with just three coming to mind: 1) Skip along and let Mo try to deal with two weeks worth of trash in a single can — She has 2 kids and this is simply not possible. 2) Call Kerri at the gym and hope that her phone is nearby *and* that she could get over to Mo’s in time. 3) Snatch the kids out of their beds, jam them in the car and head over to Mo’s place, 10 minutes away.
There was a fourth option which I entertained so briefly that it didn’t rate enough to be detailed here but I can tell you it involved having a four legged babysitter and a prayer that Abs and Ben would simply stay asleep. Nah. I went for option 3. I must have looked ridiculous trying to stuff 2 jammy’d and mostly punch-drunk-looking children into a freezing car at 7am. I kept looking around to see if anyone was looking which made me feel more like someone who was making off with the kids *without* persmission. On the way I tuned into local news radio, just in case an AMBER Alert had been issued based on my activities.
Kerri got back while I was on my way and called to see what the heck was going on. I hadn’t left a note so it’s quite likely that Kerri thought something terrible happened. If I was really thinking I wouldn’t have answered my phone and made Kerri squirm a bit. I love The Garage but I wouldn’t want to sleep there.
In the end, the fish was still alive (though very glad to have some food) and I had beat the trucks. Mo would never have known about the whole thing except, well, this post sorta spolis my alternate story.
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