I greet you from the
fluffy folds of my bed, where I am pausing from bloggery to fit my coffee mug
on my nightstand. This mug of coffee was
delivered by a magical fairy princess in a pink scarf, also known as SG. If I didn't have so much stuff on my
nightstand, I could just set down the mug without having to do an
organizational overhaul. My nightstand
currently holds:
Dr. Seuss book,
Bible, David Platt book, phone, lamp, vaseline for wintery hands, journal,
bulletin from church, Puritan prayer book, broken watch, broken camp wristband,
old receipt, remote for awesome memory foam old person movable bed, ziplock,
paper man used for object lesson in class, and now - mug of coffee.
Ladies and
gentlemen, we have a car. When I say
"we have a car", what I really mean is a nice lady from the next
church over has let us borrow her car for the remainder of our stay in
Australia. When I say car, what I really
mean is a metallic baby blue tank with a Toyota label on it. The thing is huge. Look out left side of the road, here we
come.
A Mishap
The night we got the
car, nice lady, who I'll call NL, drove it to our flat, where she picked me up
and drove back to her house. NL asked if
I wanted to drive back to her house. I
declined. I decided I'd rather face my
nerves on my own time. We got to her
house and she showed me where the gas tank and other little details were. I reviewed the directions to get back to the
highway. Left left right right, she
said. NL handed me the keys and waved
from under the glow of her porch light.
Left left right right. I set my
jaw and climbed (literally) up to the driver's seat, determined to muscle this
behemoth home.
After squeezing out
the front gate, I took a left, but I didn't count it as the first left because
it was just out of the driveway. NL
would know not to count that as the first left, right? I started counting lefts. One.
Two. Time for a right. Eh. Is
this the way we came? Hmmm. Maybe I should have started taking rights at
the last intersection? I can always turn
around, if I can find a place wide enough.
Whoa, we definitely did not come
this way. But, wait, I've been on this
road before… because this is the way the bus comes from the train station! Hark!
A flash of recognition. I don't
really remember where this road goes, just that I've been on it before, and the
bus driver always used it to get home, so maybe I could too?
Ahoy! The highway!
Mmmm.. Yep, let's take a
right. Oops, don't need windshield
wipers. Blinker. Blinker.
Got it. Driving. Driving.
Trying to figure out if I'm actually driving in the middle of the lane
where I'm supposed to be. Oh. Dark forest.
What? The birthday banner
bridge! This is good. Right turn across from the shopping center. Almost home.
Gate is closed. Fumble fumble
fumble. Fumbling with ten thousand
bangles on the key chain looking for the gate opener. Gate open.
Repeat to find garage door opener.
Hop in and out of car seven times checking to see if I can pull in any
farther. Still can't get garage door
down over hitch on behemoth. Give up and
go to bed.
A Joke
There are two kinds
of jokes, the kind you tell and the kind that happen. Yesterday, a joke happened to me. Now, friends, I am 23 years old. I have been doing laundry for years. Growing up, when we had enough laundry to
overtake a small laundromat, we could sort it into very specialized piles…
whites, darks, silky, jeans, magenta sweaters with buttons… you get the
idea. When I went off to college, I
didn't have the luxury of specialized piles, and most of the time I'd just
throw everything in, set the dial to warmish and hope for the best.
The previous
paragraph was just to do what they call establishing credibility. If you get asked to speak at a conference of
doctors on the topic of cancer treatments, you have to spend at least five
minutes telling them why they should believe you. If you're just a DJ from Milwaukee, they
probably won't listen to your professional opinions on the future of
oncogenes. So now that you've spent time
reading why I know about laundry, I can tell you what happened to me
yesterday.
I did that thing
where you chuck everything in the wash, put the soap in the drawer, slam it
shut and hit the go button. I left out
my Australian flag beach towel because sometimes it leaves blue fuzzies on
everything. I went to playgroup, came
home, ate lunch, drove to Bible study at
the high school, came home and remembered that I had wet laundry in the
wash. The moment I opened the door (it's
a front loader) I knew there was trouble.
If you know anything about my wardrobe, you know that baby pink is not a
color that appears often. It's a fine
color, I just don't wear it.
sThis was cause for
concern because I could see several things the color of baby pink tangled up
with the rest of my gray tshirts in the wash.
Then the ton of bricks that is epiphany hit me. My latest and greatest article of clothing,
the terra cotta jeans, had never been washed.
My dear terra cotta jeans had been in that load of wash and had shared
their terra cotta-ness with my white socks, white button up dress shirt and
even the white parts of my plaid flannel.
Mmm. Yes. The joke was on me. If you see me wearing baby pink, you'll know
why.
Stuff kids say
Me to two 4 year
olds: So, what do you boys want to be when you grow up?
Ethan: A fire
fighter
Derrik: Nothing
Ethan: Derrik! You have to be something or else you have to
get married!
First grade girl at
CRE to me: You are looking so lovely today!
First grade boy
(looks at girl, then back to me): You are looking so weird today!
Much love,
Little Miss Sunshine
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