When we met Olivia’s new teacher on the evening 7th grade orientation, she very kindly mentioned, TWICE, that during the first week of school (all three days) there would be no homework.
Guess who had homework on the second day of school?
Yeah.
I should have known.
See, this woman, this lovely teacher who is new to Olivia has so very much to learn about the light of my life.
The ‘homework’ Olivia brought home was work she was supposed to do in class that day. What I’m imagining Mrs. H did was place the math sheet with approximately 25 addition problems in front of Olivia. Then, bless her heart, she expected Olivia to actually solve the problems…by herself.
Hahahahahaha.
No.
That’s not how Olivia works. She simply cannot sit there on her own and do this sort of work. She needs someone (me, apparently) to sit next to her and keep her on task by reading every single problem to her, which means, if the problem is 96 +24 I have to asked, “Okay, what’s 6+4? What’s 5+5? 6+4 is the same as 5+5. What’s 5+5? Okay, now that you’ve told me what 5+5 is, what is 6+4? Remember, 6+4 is the same as 5+5. Why did you write a five below the line? Did you say the answer to 6+4 is 5? Okay, Livie, if you erase every single number and then write it again, this is going to take us twice as long. But you still have to leave a little space, even if it’s tiny, between the numbers and letter so your teacher can read what you’re writing. You don’t have to have your numbers and letters hugging each other. It’s better if they don’t touch. Stop sniffing me. What is the answer to this question? Please stop poking the pretzels in the Chex mix with your pencil. Okay, that’s it, the Chex mix is being moved out of reach. But seriously, that is 6+4?”
And after we figure out what 6+4 is, we move on to what 9+2+1 is…and so on and so on and so on. I know.
Yes, this went on for an HOUR that first night.
And first, let me explain that I got home that night already frustrated because my phone was being stupid. Thankfully, Alyssa asked me if I’d turned if off and then back on, which, of course I hadn’t. Once I did that, it was fine. Duh.
Homework got better the longer we worked on it, if you can believe it. I settled down, stopped being a bitch and Olivia stopped sniffing me long enough to do her actual work.
My concern, though, is what happens when she starts having actual homework along with all the shit stuff she was supposed to do at school but just…you know, didn’t? Will we be sitting there for HOURS each night, doing her school work at home and then her homework? Because…no. I just don’t think I can do that. I definitely don’t want to. I want us to have a balance. It’s sort of like work/life except in this case it’s a school/life balance. I want her to be able to relax.
Okay, so I need to calm down.
It’s the first week of school. Her teacher is getting to know her. She has access to Dr. C, the wonderful teacher who worked with Liv over the last few years. They’ll figure this out or they won’t. If they don’t, we’ll figure something out at home. If it comes to it, I’ll ask for a conference and we’ll go from there.
School, like everything else, is a work in process. I need to remember that if I get home another night and find PILES of homework in Liv’s backpack.
Sigh.
A mom, a dad and two daughters. We're living ordinary lives with a twist of 5p- (Cri du Chat) for spice. But we're about so much more than our younger daughter's genetic diagnosis.
Monday, August 24, 2020
Friday, August 21, 2020
Three Years
August 21, 2017 was a Monday. The details are still so clear in my head.
This was the seventeenth anniversary of when I started my job (at the time).
Bigger still, though, it was the day I was told I had cancer. I knew it was coming. My doctor had called me the day before but I hadn’t been near my phone and so wasn’t able to answer.
Doctors do not call you on the weekends with good news.
I called my doctor’s office at 9am the next morning, Monday, August 21, 2017. I was at work because, why not? I didn’t feel sick, there was no reason not to work.
He took my call right away. Again, not a good thing.
He told me right there over the phone that the biopsy came back saying I had cancer. But he didn’t want to go into details on the phone. He asked me if I could come to his office that afternoon. He wanted my husband to be there too.
I called Tom and gave him the news. I asked him if he could meet me at the doctor’s office at 2:30.
I called my mom and asked her if she could meet the girls’ bus at 3:10 at our house. I explained the situation. She cried.
I hadn’t cried at that point. I mean…why? We didn’t know how bad things were yet. I wanted to save my tears for when they might actually be needed.
But I get it. I totally get why my mom cried. If I were told one of my children had cancer, no matter how old those children were (I was 46) I’d cry too.
I continued to work, because what else could I do?
Tom and I met at the doctor’s office. Dr. S was very kind. He explained that my cancer was invasive ductal cancer. It was triple negative. He said I’d need to meet with the surgeon but it might take weeks before I could get in.
At that point, his nurse came and told us that she’d contacted the surgeon’s office and had gotten me in to see him that same week, on Thursday, at 3pm. Dr. S was surprised that Dr. B had an opening.
I was not surprised. It felt very much like divine intervention at work. Just like those nights I’d lay awake, thinking about the pain in my left breast. There was no lump that I could feel. It was too deep. But I knew that pain wasn’t normal.
From there, things just snowballed. Meet the surgeon, get chest x-ray, get breast MRI with contract, schedule surgery (September 5). Meet the oncologist. Get port placed. Set up appointment with chemo nurse (Kyla) for chemo education. Set up appointment for first chemo. Second chemo; two days after that second chemo treatment, my hair started falling out and I was bald all the way into the 16th chemo. Meet with Parkview billing because OF COURSE my treatment was going to span two years and I’d have a whole new deductible to meet. This woman was awesome. She found me a program that would pay up to $5000 toward my Taxol chemo. Guess who much my twelve infusions of Taxol cost? That’s right, exactly $5000.
After chemo was done it’s time to get port removed, meet with radiation oncologist, feel terrible about self for a few days because while he was kind, he was the first doctor in all these doctors I’ve seen and who have seen my stupid boobs to make me feel like maybe the cancer was my fault. Get over myself, schedule appointment to get fitted for brace that I will lay in for my five minutes of radiation that will take place every week day for seven weeks, for a total of 35 treatments.
Schedule first radiation, get through all 35, ‘graduate’ from radiation.
And…done.
Except of course once you’ve been through cancer treatments, you never really feel done. Every twinge, every new ache must be the cancer coming back. It can’t possibly be that I’m getting old and I’m way too fat.
I still see my chemo oncologist every six months. This past June I was released from seeing my radiation oncologist. I see the surgeon once a year. His office schedules my mammograms. I’ve had one more breast MRI (with contrast.)
I’m doing okay. I’m here and I’m so very grateful for that. Every single day is a gift that I don’t appreciate nearly enough what with my irritability and being tired. But that’s life. We can’t be all sunshine and roses every second of every day.
But I do try and take a minute each day to be grateful. I’m grateful to God for His grace and His love. I’m grateful to the doctors and nurses and technicians and billing clerks and hematologists and receptionists who were always so kind to me. Who always treated me like a person, someone going through a traumatic experience rather than a number, someone to push through the program.
I would like for this to have all meant something but it doesn’t always have to. Sometimes, it’s just one chapter in the book of your life. And that’s okay too. But sometimes, like on days like this, I feel the need to go back and reread that chapter, if only to see how far I’ve come.
This was the seventeenth anniversary of when I started my job (at the time).
Bigger still, though, it was the day I was told I had cancer. I knew it was coming. My doctor had called me the day before but I hadn’t been near my phone and so wasn’t able to answer.
Doctors do not call you on the weekends with good news.
I called my doctor’s office at 9am the next morning, Monday, August 21, 2017. I was at work because, why not? I didn’t feel sick, there was no reason not to work.
He took my call right away. Again, not a good thing.
He told me right there over the phone that the biopsy came back saying I had cancer. But he didn’t want to go into details on the phone. He asked me if I could come to his office that afternoon. He wanted my husband to be there too.
I called Tom and gave him the news. I asked him if he could meet me at the doctor’s office at 2:30.
I called my mom and asked her if she could meet the girls’ bus at 3:10 at our house. I explained the situation. She cried.
I hadn’t cried at that point. I mean…why? We didn’t know how bad things were yet. I wanted to save my tears for when they might actually be needed.
But I get it. I totally get why my mom cried. If I were told one of my children had cancer, no matter how old those children were (I was 46) I’d cry too.
I continued to work, because what else could I do?
Tom and I met at the doctor’s office. Dr. S was very kind. He explained that my cancer was invasive ductal cancer. It was triple negative. He said I’d need to meet with the surgeon but it might take weeks before I could get in.
At that point, his nurse came and told us that she’d contacted the surgeon’s office and had gotten me in to see him that same week, on Thursday, at 3pm. Dr. S was surprised that Dr. B had an opening.
I was not surprised. It felt very much like divine intervention at work. Just like those nights I’d lay awake, thinking about the pain in my left breast. There was no lump that I could feel. It was too deep. But I knew that pain wasn’t normal.
From there, things just snowballed. Meet the surgeon, get chest x-ray, get breast MRI with contract, schedule surgery (September 5). Meet the oncologist. Get port placed. Set up appointment with chemo nurse (Kyla) for chemo education. Set up appointment for first chemo. Second chemo; two days after that second chemo treatment, my hair started falling out and I was bald all the way into the 16th chemo. Meet with Parkview billing because OF COURSE my treatment was going to span two years and I’d have a whole new deductible to meet. This woman was awesome. She found me a program that would pay up to $5000 toward my Taxol chemo. Guess who much my twelve infusions of Taxol cost? That’s right, exactly $5000.
After chemo was done it’s time to get port removed, meet with radiation oncologist, feel terrible about self for a few days because while he was kind, he was the first doctor in all these doctors I’ve seen and who have seen my stupid boobs to make me feel like maybe the cancer was my fault. Get over myself, schedule appointment to get fitted for brace that I will lay in for my five minutes of radiation that will take place every week day for seven weeks, for a total of 35 treatments.
Schedule first radiation, get through all 35, ‘graduate’ from radiation.
And…done.
Except of course once you’ve been through cancer treatments, you never really feel done. Every twinge, every new ache must be the cancer coming back. It can’t possibly be that I’m getting old and I’m way too fat.
I still see my chemo oncologist every six months. This past June I was released from seeing my radiation oncologist. I see the surgeon once a year. His office schedules my mammograms. I’ve had one more breast MRI (with contrast.)
I’m doing okay. I’m here and I’m so very grateful for that. Every single day is a gift that I don’t appreciate nearly enough what with my irritability and being tired. But that’s life. We can’t be all sunshine and roses every second of every day.
But I do try and take a minute each day to be grateful. I’m grateful to God for His grace and His love. I’m grateful to the doctors and nurses and technicians and billing clerks and hematologists and receptionists who were always so kind to me. Who always treated me like a person, someone going through a traumatic experience rather than a number, someone to push through the program.
I would like for this to have all meant something but it doesn’t always have to. Sometimes, it’s just one chapter in the book of your life. And that’s okay too. But sometimes, like on days like this, I feel the need to go back and reread that chapter, if only to see how far I’ve come.
Wednesday, August 19, 2020
Self-Aware
One evening a week or so before school started, Olivia declared that she was using a scrap of material from one of Lyss’s craft projects to wrap around her (Olivia’s) left hand. She said she was wrapping her hand to stop herself from flapping that hand.
Oh.
Yes.
The flapping; she’s become aware of the flapping. Maybe she’s always been aware of the flapping but suddenly, she’s aware that not everyone does it.
And she doesn’t want to be one of the few who flaps.
Sigh.
Self-awareness can be a great thing. But then again, it can also be a confidence killer.
I want her to be aware of herself and to be able to control her own body. I also want her to feel good about herself and not be worried about all the ways she’s ‘different’ from everyone else.
It’s a tough line.
After explaining to me that she was wrapping her hand to keep herself from flapping it, she asked me if I would talk to her new teacher this year about the flapping and see if her teacher, Mrs. H, had any ideas for how Liv could keep herself from flapping.
She wanted to know if I’d ever done anything like she did.
I think she was reassured when I told her that when I was her age, I did shake my hands; both of them. It was very much like the flapping that Olivia does. In fact, it probably was flapping. It started around the time my parents were getting divorced, so…take that for what it’s worth.
It drove my mom crazy. Whenever I’d do it around her, she’d snap, “Stop shaking your hands!”
I told Olivia that I was able to stop shaking my hands by putting my hands in my pockets, either the front or back pockets of my jeans.
She seemed reassured that I’d done it too and I’d been able to stop.
I reminded her that once upon a time, she’d sucked her thumb and pulled her hair out and she’d stopped doing those things. She liked knowing that.
I’ve often wondered if it’s better to be so disabled as to not even realize you’re disabled or just this side of ‘normal’ and know you’re not quite normal.
I love Olivia. I love her so much that it makes my heart hurt to know she’s hurting. And yes, I would STILL take away 5p- if I could. I would ‘fix’ her because it would make her life easier. I think she’s amazing just the way she is but I also know that having all of that fifth chromosome would take away some of the quirks, some of the challenges, some of the things that make her life harder.
Self-awareness…a blessing or a curse?
Tuesday, August 18, 2020
Essential
How do we decide what is essential?
I mean, do we go back to basics and say that food, water and shelter are the only truly essential things?
I’ve been working since late May. My job would not be deemed essential if you were to use the above criteria. I do not provide anyone with food, water or shelter.
Okay. So in the case of a pandemic, we need to add medical care to the list of essential items.
That means that anyone who provides people with food, water, shelter and medical care is essential.
I’m still not essential and yet…here I am. I cannot do my job from home. Please know that if I could, and if my place of employment would allow it, I would absolutely be at home trying to parent my daughters, wife my husband and work for my employer. Alas, that is not an option for me.
The girls are scheduled to go back to school on August 19.
This makes teachers essential, right?
Absolutely.
And the support staff that keeps a school running must be essential too.
With school starting, so are sports, which…are they essential? I mean, the kids probably thing so, right?
We want so badly for life to get back to normal. We want to live and thrive and do things and be with people and yet…doing this might mean that some of us won’t live through this.
Sigh.
Recently (and here’s where all this pontificating is going, finally) Alyssa’s voice coach messaged us. She has openings for the fall and would love to add Lyss back to her schedule.
Alyssa stopped voice lessons back in March when the world skidded to a halt. Her coach, Ms. C messaged us in June (?) and offered Alyssa a spot for summer lessons.
We declined, deciding that at that time, voice lessons were not essential.
But now?
Still probably not essential but maybe, well, necessary? Or if not necessary, perhaps a bonus? Alyssa has worked so hard all summer. She’s masked up and served up beef and cheddars with sides of cheese sticks and jamocha shakes with very few complaints.
So…voice lessons? Skip them for fear of contracting a potentially deadly virus? Go for it because damn it, how much more are we all going to have to give up?
I know, logically, that limiting the number of people we have contact with is smart. I also know that each person one of us (my nuclear family being the ‘us’ in this instance) has contact with is bringing with them all the people they’ve had contact with and so on into infinity.
But…my heart argues with my head and says, “When does it end?”
My head wants to know who has to die for us to really stop all this whining.
My heart whines that the voice coach gave lessons all summer long and apparently all is well.
(Can you tell that Tom is my head and Alyssa is my heart?)
What do we do? How far is too far when it comes to slowing down? How much is too much to give up? But really, when it comes to people’s lives, their actual hearts beating, is anything too much to give up if it means everyone gets to, you know, live?
Sunday, August 16, 2020
Permission
Alyssa and I went to a graduation party last week.
Oh, calm down. We weren’t there more than ten minutes, we wore masks the entire time and we didn’t eat or touch anything. Sure, no one else in the entire room (it was the gym of an old school) wore masks and everyone else was acting like there is not pandemic but we were most excellent social distancers.
Also, we dropped Liv off at my mom’s along the way to keep our own numbers down and let’s face it, she has a hard time keeping her grubby little hands to herself, though to be fair, she is VERY good at slathering hand sanitizer on those grubby little hands all the way up to her arm pits.
This party, or open house, or celebration or whatever, was on a Friday from 5pm to 9pm. We arrived at like 5:10. We planned it this way so that we wouldn’t have to breathe the stench of a thousand other maniacs as the evening wore on.
I didn’t tell Tom about this little venture into the world of semi-socializing until the morning of the event. No need to stress the poor man any more than he already stresses. Dude needs to turn off the damned television, is what I’m saying.
I mentioned the grad party as I was walking out the door to go to work that day. He gave me a look that said he doubted my sanity in this decision and I shrugged and said, “We have to make an appearance. We’ll be careful.”
He retorted, “Well, since you’re not asking permission, I guess I can’t say anything.”
Permission?!? Hahahahaha. I am so sure.
Any of you out there who actually know me in real life, can you even imagine me asking permission for something like this? And let’s remember, I’m not contrary, not at all, but if he were to try and tell me we couldn’t go, guess where we’d go and stay for HOURS? And if that isn’t just cutting off my nose to spite my face, I don’t know what is.
I just laughed at him because, yeah, okay, I’ll ask permission.
I think he was sort of joking but I also know he really didn’t think it was a good idea for us to go.
Guys…will this ever end? Will we ever get back to just living our lives? I just wanted to drop off a card with some money in it and tell this young lady I was happy for her. We didn’t hug, we didn’t shake hands, we didn’t eat a ‘walking taco.’ Hell, we didn’t even stick around for cake. That’s what this pandemic is doing to us, it’s taking away our CAKE.
Olivia has seventh grade orientation on the Monday before the girls go back to school. Tom will not be attending this orientation. He feels (and rightly so, if I’m perfectly honest) that if everyone is smart, one parent will attend with their child. This will limit the number of people attending and will hopefully aid in social distancing.
So I’m taking Liv to her seventh grade orientation. Because you know me. I don’t miss this sort of thing. I’m THAT mom. And I never even asked permission before I became THAT mom.
Oh, calm down. We weren’t there more than ten minutes, we wore masks the entire time and we didn’t eat or touch anything. Sure, no one else in the entire room (it was the gym of an old school) wore masks and everyone else was acting like there is not pandemic but we were most excellent social distancers.
Also, we dropped Liv off at my mom’s along the way to keep our own numbers down and let’s face it, she has a hard time keeping her grubby little hands to herself, though to be fair, she is VERY good at slathering hand sanitizer on those grubby little hands all the way up to her arm pits.
This party, or open house, or celebration or whatever, was on a Friday from 5pm to 9pm. We arrived at like 5:10. We planned it this way so that we wouldn’t have to breathe the stench of a thousand other maniacs as the evening wore on.
I didn’t tell Tom about this little venture into the world of semi-socializing until the morning of the event. No need to stress the poor man any more than he already stresses. Dude needs to turn off the damned television, is what I’m saying.
I mentioned the grad party as I was walking out the door to go to work that day. He gave me a look that said he doubted my sanity in this decision and I shrugged and said, “We have to make an appearance. We’ll be careful.”
He retorted, “Well, since you’re not asking permission, I guess I can’t say anything.”
Permission?!? Hahahahaha. I am so sure.
Any of you out there who actually know me in real life, can you even imagine me asking permission for something like this? And let’s remember, I’m not contrary, not at all, but if he were to try and tell me we couldn’t go, guess where we’d go and stay for HOURS? And if that isn’t just cutting off my nose to spite my face, I don’t know what is.
I just laughed at him because, yeah, okay, I’ll ask permission.
I think he was sort of joking but I also know he really didn’t think it was a good idea for us to go.
Guys…will this ever end? Will we ever get back to just living our lives? I just wanted to drop off a card with some money in it and tell this young lady I was happy for her. We didn’t hug, we didn’t shake hands, we didn’t eat a ‘walking taco.’ Hell, we didn’t even stick around for cake. That’s what this pandemic is doing to us, it’s taking away our CAKE.
Olivia has seventh grade orientation on the Monday before the girls go back to school. Tom will not be attending this orientation. He feels (and rightly so, if I’m perfectly honest) that if everyone is smart, one parent will attend with their child. This will limit the number of people attending and will hopefully aid in social distancing.
So I’m taking Liv to her seventh grade orientation. Because you know me. I don’t miss this sort of thing. I’m THAT mom. And I never even asked permission before I became THAT mom.
Friday, August 14, 2020
Schooled
Gotta go back, back, back to school again...Ahem, sorry for the little Grease 2 flashback.
We’ve been talking about school for months now, right?
The girls’ last day of school was Friday, March 13. Sure, sure, they did online school until the end of May but please. That hardly counts.
It’s as if they’re currently on week 20 of spring break.
I’ve been waiting for the school to get their ‘reopening plan’ together and posted.
It’s happened. They posted it on July 30th.
The gist is the school will do their best to clean, clean, clean common surfaces. Kids will be encouraged to social distance as much as possible. Masks will be encouraged throughout the day, obviously during lunch masks will be impossible but the school will attempt to keep kids in the same groups at all times.
So…we’ll see.
About five days after the school dropped their reopening plan, Tom asked, “So, when does the online schooling start back up for the girls?”
*aside: He asked me this at 6:48am on a Tuesday (fucking Tuesdays). I’d just put my phone in my purse and was getting ready to walk out the door.*
I paused, put my purse down and went to the kitchen table where I’d laid the letter we’d received the day before addressed to “The Parents of Olivia Ordinary”. It was informing us of a parent/student meeting on August 17 for students transitioning into seventh grade. Alongside this letter were copies of both girls’ immunizations from our family doctor’s office. I am taking those to the school to have the nurse confirm that both girls are up to date on their vaccinations.
Look at me, all on top of shit these days.
I also mentioned the text we’d received the day before informing us of the day and time we were to drop off O’s Chromebook.
At this point, it occurred to him that there was, apparently, not going to be online school this year, that the girls are going to be IN school.
He mused, “Yeah, Olivia probably would do better if she were in school.”
You think?
I blinked at him. Where has he been these last twenty weeks?
I mean, seriously?
Was he not there during the tearful days that I was at home trying to keep her on task, both of us at our wit’s end, slowly losing our minds?
Can he not see the state of her cuticles, as she picks them bloody from the anxiety she’s feeling these days?
She needs the routine of school. She needs to be around her peers, even if through masks. She needs the patience of those teachers who know her, who care about her, who are trained to help her. She needs to be away from the news and the murder and the crime shows that are constantly blaring from the television in our family room day in and day out.
Yeah, she’s going to school. I hope and pray it’s the best decision. Obviously, remaining home and waiting out this virus would be best for all but…that just doesn’t feel possible right now, not for any of us. And it’s a shame that we’re having to choose between our physical health and our mental health.
Sigh…it feels very much like we’re damned if we do and damned if we don’t.
We’ve been talking about school for months now, right?
The girls’ last day of school was Friday, March 13. Sure, sure, they did online school until the end of May but please. That hardly counts.
It’s as if they’re currently on week 20 of spring break.
I’ve been waiting for the school to get their ‘reopening plan’ together and posted.
It’s happened. They posted it on July 30th.
The gist is the school will do their best to clean, clean, clean common surfaces. Kids will be encouraged to social distance as much as possible. Masks will be encouraged throughout the day, obviously during lunch masks will be impossible but the school will attempt to keep kids in the same groups at all times.
So…we’ll see.
About five days after the school dropped their reopening plan, Tom asked, “So, when does the online schooling start back up for the girls?”
*aside: He asked me this at 6:48am on a Tuesday (fucking Tuesdays). I’d just put my phone in my purse and was getting ready to walk out the door.*
I paused, put my purse down and went to the kitchen table where I’d laid the letter we’d received the day before addressed to “The Parents of Olivia Ordinary”. It was informing us of a parent/student meeting on August 17 for students transitioning into seventh grade. Alongside this letter were copies of both girls’ immunizations from our family doctor’s office. I am taking those to the school to have the nurse confirm that both girls are up to date on their vaccinations.
Look at me, all on top of shit these days.
I also mentioned the text we’d received the day before informing us of the day and time we were to drop off O’s Chromebook.
At this point, it occurred to him that there was, apparently, not going to be online school this year, that the girls are going to be IN school.
He mused, “Yeah, Olivia probably would do better if she were in school.”
You think?
I blinked at him. Where has he been these last twenty weeks?
I mean, seriously?
Was he not there during the tearful days that I was at home trying to keep her on task, both of us at our wit’s end, slowly losing our minds?
Can he not see the state of her cuticles, as she picks them bloody from the anxiety she’s feeling these days?
She needs the routine of school. She needs to be around her peers, even if through masks. She needs the patience of those teachers who know her, who care about her, who are trained to help her. She needs to be away from the news and the murder and the crime shows that are constantly blaring from the television in our family room day in and day out.
Yeah, she’s going to school. I hope and pray it’s the best decision. Obviously, remaining home and waiting out this virus would be best for all but…that just doesn’t feel possible right now, not for any of us. And it’s a shame that we’re having to choose between our physical health and our mental health.
Sigh…it feels very much like we’re damned if we do and damned if we don’t.
Thursday, August 13, 2020
One Headlight
We keep a running list of items needed. You empty the box of Cheezits? Put it on the list that’s always on the microwave with seven pens, six of which don’t write. If you’re me, you will always have to try all seven pens to fine the ONE the works. But you won’t bother to throw away the six that don’t work. I mean, who do you think you are?
One recent Saturday, I went to get the grocery list and found Tom’s debit card on top of it with an item (or two?) listed. A stop at Auto Zone was going to be necessary to pick up this particular item.
He’d written “headlight bulbs, set of two, for 2012 Chevy Equinox.”
I was immediately disgruntled.
Wait. I know. Let me acknowledge right here that I KNOW I’m a brat. I also know that I’m spoiled.
But seriously, what the hell is the point of having a HUSBAND if said husband won’t go and fetch these sorts of things himself? So what if these particular bulbs were for MY car? Also so what if I didn’t even know I had a headlight out. I rarely drive after dark, so I had no idea how long I’d been driving with one headlight. Sue me.
So yes, since Tom was at the post office (as he is often on Saturday mornings) I had a mini tantrum over having to stop at Auto Zone and get bulbs for my car.
By the time he got home, which was right before the girls and I were leaving to go buy groceries…and stop at Auto Zone, I thought I’d gotten my little snit out of the way. I blandly said I’d seen the addition to the list and he joked that at least he wasn’t expecting me to go to Walmart and try and find the right bulbs myself, that at Auto Zone you just tell them what you need and they go get them for you. I may have rolled my eyes like a big old baby. I can’t be sure, I wasn’t looking in a mirror.
Apparently my ambivalence toward purchasing those bulbs came through, though, because we’d been on the road for maybe three miles (not long enough to cross the state line into Indiana) when Tom called.
Alyssa answered my phone because, hello, I was driving. She spoke briefly with her father.
When she hung up she said, “Dad said you don’t have to go to Auto Zone. He’s going to go to an antique store later today or tomorrow so he can stop and get the bulbs himself.”
Huh.
Well.
Never let it be said that I’m not contrary as hell.
Now that he’d said I didn’t need to stop at Auto Zone, guess who was going to Auto Zone.
My mom laughed at my bratty behavior and said that I was lucky to have Tom.
Yes, Mother, I know.
I really do know that. But I also STILL wish he’d just gotten the stupid bulbs, changed them and told me about it after. Sure, the trip into Auto Zone took less than five minutes but now I have to spend about five more minutes feeling bad for being a spoiled brat.
AND! And I had to go home and apologize to my husband for it. That’s just annoying.
One recent Saturday, I went to get the grocery list and found Tom’s debit card on top of it with an item (or two?) listed. A stop at Auto Zone was going to be necessary to pick up this particular item.
He’d written “headlight bulbs, set of two, for 2012 Chevy Equinox.”
I was immediately disgruntled.
Wait. I know. Let me acknowledge right here that I KNOW I’m a brat. I also know that I’m spoiled.
But seriously, what the hell is the point of having a HUSBAND if said husband won’t go and fetch these sorts of things himself? So what if these particular bulbs were for MY car? Also so what if I didn’t even know I had a headlight out. I rarely drive after dark, so I had no idea how long I’d been driving with one headlight. Sue me.
So yes, since Tom was at the post office (as he is often on Saturday mornings) I had a mini tantrum over having to stop at Auto Zone and get bulbs for my car.
By the time he got home, which was right before the girls and I were leaving to go buy groceries…and stop at Auto Zone, I thought I’d gotten my little snit out of the way. I blandly said I’d seen the addition to the list and he joked that at least he wasn’t expecting me to go to Walmart and try and find the right bulbs myself, that at Auto Zone you just tell them what you need and they go get them for you. I may have rolled my eyes like a big old baby. I can’t be sure, I wasn’t looking in a mirror.
Apparently my ambivalence toward purchasing those bulbs came through, though, because we’d been on the road for maybe three miles (not long enough to cross the state line into Indiana) when Tom called.
Alyssa answered my phone because, hello, I was driving. She spoke briefly with her father.
When she hung up she said, “Dad said you don’t have to go to Auto Zone. He’s going to go to an antique store later today or tomorrow so he can stop and get the bulbs himself.”
Huh.
Well.
Never let it be said that I’m not contrary as hell.
Now that he’d said I didn’t need to stop at Auto Zone, guess who was going to Auto Zone.
My mom laughed at my bratty behavior and said that I was lucky to have Tom.
Yes, Mother, I know.
I really do know that. But I also STILL wish he’d just gotten the stupid bulbs, changed them and told me about it after. Sure, the trip into Auto Zone took less than five minutes but now I have to spend about five more minutes feeling bad for being a spoiled brat.
AND! And I had to go home and apologize to my husband for it. That’s just annoying.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)