 | Diary Navigation:
|
February 23, 2005
Hello, hello, are you there, are you there?
It’s hard to type in here with all that echo.
So plain and simple, I SUCK at being a diary writer. It was the well-intentioned empty promises that killed me. I contemplated closing shop, considered a blog and just like that, less than a minute ago, in a moment of simple thought, it hit me. I’ll just take 15 minutes and write something. And rather than wait till I have two hours to type up a thirty five page update, I’ll pop back in the next time I have a something to add, however brief…tomorrow, this afternoon, whenever someone’s done something cute or charming or evil.
For all my hair brained, half thought through plans, how come this one feels so easy?
Let the first entry of the new me be about my ultimate humiliation. Truth be told, there’s been so many it’s probably not the ultimate, but San Antonio, this one hurt my ego and my knees.
It was a Friday night and we had a fun, albeit hectic, weekend planned. We had a party Saturday night and I had some groceries to buy and things to prepare so Remo was going to pick up all the kids and feed them supper so I could go straight from work to run my errands. As it was, the day had been wild, my colleague was off and I was over my head, you know how new jobs are. We were in the middle of a blizzard (ok fine, only 10 cms, but the first snow fall always heightens anxiety). As I was packing it in at work, Remo called to say the only highway that could take me home was closed, that he was going to have to work all day Saturday and bonus, leave in the middle of the night. I flipped my computer back on.
It was close to 7:00 when I left the office and the roads were a mess. I buy all my fruits and vegetables in a market and everything else at a big grocery store and obviously, you know how I get off on making things complicated, both places are in cities I don’t live in.
My first err in judgment came in traffic, while considering I couldn’t possibly live another day without buying a new sweater because the three thousand I own are just not ME. My first stop would be the mall that might have my sweater in it.
I was wearing my knee high black Guess dress boots, a short skirt, black tights, and a coat to the knees. I ran in the mall, found things that screamed for me and waited in line at the cash. We were a couple weeks from Christmas but still, I couldn’t figure out what all those foolish people were doing out on such a miserable night. Only when it was my turn did I frantically search my purse for my wallet. It wasn’t there, crap. I couldn’t for the life of me think where it could be. In the van? At home? In my other coat pocket? The cashier was kind enough to set my things aside.
Outside I saw it. My van with a big huge smash on the back side of it. I was in there for maybe ten minutes and the numnut who crashed into my poor, unsuspecting van didn’t leave a note. (Side note: you can’t imagine the story that came of having my van fixed, it’s worth an entry all it’s own, a month it was gone).
I called Remo to complain but he didn’t make a big deal about it. In the same breath I wondered if maybe he had tripped over my wallet. It killed me to have to answer why. My real fear at that moment was my worst-case scenario. For as organized as I can be, I can be so careless. The last time I remembered having the wallet was the day before, when I went shopping at lunchtime and bought a new suit. Oh man, oh man, the suit! I had pulled out the suit to show a couple friends from work and I noticed then the bag had a hole in it. What if I had put the wallet in the bag with the suit and it fell out the hole when I walked to the van that night? It wasn’t even actually my wallet-wallet but the tiny LV clutch I take when I don’t want to carry everything. The whole way home I tried to figure out what I might’ve lost.
At home, I miraculously found the wallet, tucked the kids in with Remo and a Christmas movie and fought off his advice to stay home. With award winning drama (really, I was SO victim), I insisted I had to go out in that storm to get the groceries. Then I went straight back to the sweater mall. When I parked, I curiously looked in my wallet to see what I would’ve lost had I really lost it. Like there was time for this exercise! The carpet receipts were in there. Now the week before, I went on an area rug panic. It was supposed to be my Christmas present, but I ended up bringing four home before I settled on one. One was expensive enough, had I lost the receipts and had to keep the other three I’d have died. Wait a minute, where was I again? Oh yah, the sweater mall.
I went back to the store, got the things I wanted to buy from customer service, got back in the line and like Groundhog Day the movie, discovered I didn’t have my wallet in my purse AGAIN. Obviously it was the same clerk. I threw my head back and moaned and told the girl I was going to run back to my car, begged her to please leave my things there on the side, I’d be just two minutes (I was actually parked ten minutes away) and I actually, physically, ran to the car. I had this fear that I maybe dropped my wallet off my lap when I got out the door. Imagine losing your wallet and then finding it long enough to lose it again? It made me go faster.
The wallet was in my van, I practically kissed it. In my RACE to get back to the clerk quick enough she’d squeeze me in, I was flying.
Now imagine the rest in slow motion.
I’m running through the doors, down a long corridor and at the end of this hallway there’s a dollar store with maybe fifty people in line. I’ll never forget all those faces. I am running like a friggan GAZELLE and in mid-stride, the two pulls of my boot zippers stuck together, gluing my legs together at the knees and knocking me to the ground.
In a skirt.
In front of ALL those people.
With no way to get up.
I couldn’t bend my knees.
I wanted to die.
With the force of Hercules, I ripped my boots apart and jumped up and took off. Three people came to see if I was ok and I climbed over them to get away. I went to my store, went right to the clerk, shaking like a leaf and seeing stars and told everyone who was behind, beside, even three aisles away, that I just fell. They stared at me, blankly, like I was a nut job.
If you go back a pregnancy or two you’ll remember those same boots nearly killed me once before. When they stuck together with my belly out to here and because I couldn’t bend to fix them, I had to get some stranger in a grocery store to go under my coat and skirt and detach them. I’ll let you know how the company responds when they get my letter.
And for the record? I could’ve lived without the sweater. Please don’t tell Remo.
I’ll be back sooner than later,
Allisun
 |  |
|
want to keep a diary on iParenting?
Authoring a diary on the iParenting network allows you to chronicle your family's story, preserving it for years to come. It's also a great way to get the most out of the iParenting community. Click here to start...
|
The iParenting Media Awards program helps parents find the best products for their families. 
