Hello, and welcome to the new week! This week’s motto is “Can’t possibly be as bad as last week,” and so far it’s really living up to expectations!
Here’s a few ways you might be able to tell if it’s time to rejoin civilization:
1) The hampers are overflowing and the closets and dressers are empty;
2) The tree is half-trimmed and surrounded by boxes;
3) An earnest woman calls to ask if your child will be coming to her child’s birthday party, and you have to confess that you have a week’s worth of unopened mail and so you didn’t even realize there was an invitation;
4) The dishwasher is full of clean dishes and the sink is overflowing with dirty ones;
5) All of the above are true and you’re starting to even scare yourself a little.
So, uh, I was busy today. And almost sort of normal!
Yep. I did all kinds of things that needed doing. I was a whirling dervish of activity, if that dervish was fairly determined but had a stiff neck, still. Just like that.
Pay no attention to the enormous mound of sheets and towels on the floor of my bedroom, or the basket overflowing with socks. It’s all clean. I’m sort of hoping it’ll all fold itself. You know, I’ll just wake up in the morning and it’ll all be taken care of. It could happen. Shut up.
I spent an inordinate amount of time on the phone today. My favorite, by far, was the phone call where I tried to track down the title to my car. I suspect that the bank never sent it to me when I paid off my loan, and I made the foolish mistake of trying to clarify this with the bank. Hahaha! Silly me. In the year and a half since I paid off the loan, the bank that held the lien has been swallowed by another, larger bank.
GOSH I love big financial institutions. Don’t you? They’re swell. Particularly when they phase out the toll-free number the smaller bank had, and utilize those delightful off-shore customer services. I spent half an hour on the phone with a nice woman in India who spoke almost no English and knew nothing. After putting me on hold four times to “check my information” she came back and took my phone number so that someone else could call me back. I’m still waiting.
Of course, WHY I need the title to the car that’s going to be crushed for scrap is a little bit confusing to me, anyway, but whatever. I’ll be ordering a duplicate from the DMV, I guess.
It took me most of the morning to psych myself up to go clean out my car. The poor guy who took me to the back of the holding area to find it… he probably thought I was a complete whackjob. I could NOT. STOP. TALKING. He looked at my new car with the temporary plates and said, “Oh, you got another one!” which I of course took as an invitation to tell him the entire story of my car-haggling odyssey from last week. Then he was treated to a running commentary on every piece of detritus I found on the floor of the car. I KNEW I was being completely annoying, and yet I couldn’t seem to STOP.
Sometimes, if I keep talking, I don’t really have time to freak out.
There’s a fair amount of blood inside the car where Chickadee hit her head. Plus I hadn’t really LOOKED at the damage to the car before. Facing these things didn’t exactly fill me with joy. (No, they filled me with yappityyapitis.) I tried to focus on the task at hand. Get the car seats. Grab the cargo tray and jumper cables. Empty the glovebox and other compartments. Shove everything else into a garbage bag to deal with later.
Except, we had these ducks that sat on the dashboard. A mother duck, and her two baby ducks. It’s a long and somewhat boring story of where they came from and why, but they are the hallmark of our car. They were one of the first things Monkey asked about after the crash. (“Will the ducks be okay?”) And hey, the ducks are rubber, so I knew they’d be fine… and I knew the kids would be excited to see them sitting on the dash of the new car; the final sign that everything was okay.
Right there on the dash was the mama duck and one of her ducklings. Just one. I had to hunt for the other one. I finally found it bottoms-up, underneath a pile of papers on the floor. “Oh, my kids just LOVE these ducks, they always say that’s how they know it’s our car,” I yammered to the hapless attendant waiting for me to finish up and SHUT UP ALREADY. And then I righted the duckling in my hand and saw that it had a single droplet of dried blood right in the middle of its forehead.
I blinked at it. The circle remained, and no question about what it was. I checked the mother duck and the other duckling. They were unmarred.
I stopped babbling and cleared out the rest in record time. Driving away, I thanked the man for his patience, and then licked my thumb and rubbed the duckling’s head. It came clean with just a couple of quick swipes. At the first red light, I carefully wedged the mother back into her perch on the corner of the dash and set her babies on her belly in their customary position–facing forward, watching the road.
When I picked the kids up after school, I waited to see who would notice first. Monkey was about 10 feet from the car when he shouted, “THE DUCKS!” You could see that all was now right in his world. Chickadee was not as easily impressed. She quizzed me: Were those the same ducks? Had I gone and emptied out the car? Would they smush up our old car into a little cube, now?
And finally: The ducks were right up front… they hadn’t been hurt in the accident?
I told them about finding the one duckling with the blood on it. As she buckled herself in, Chickadee suggested I grab a black Sharpie at home and draw stitches on that one’s head. This caused great hilarity in the back seat.
Yep. Everything’s back to normal.
How fitting; the ducks reflect the three of you. And you’re rubber, too, in a way. You’ll all be fine ;-)
And no, the laundry-folding fairies never show up here either. I think somebody’s kidnapped them!
The spot of blood on the duck made me sob. Oh, I don’t know if I could have dealt with that.
Screw the laundry. If you all are wrinkled for a week, people won’t care. You just take care of you and the kids.
Sounds alot like my house!! This is normal?? :)
Stitches, now that is one good kid.
Dervish? That is my new “Word of the Day.” Thank you, Mir, the Vocabulary Woman! I shall use it and spread it throughout the world.
oooweeeeooo. Are we out of the twilight zone yet? I’m with Chickadee, the duckie needs stitches – but not with a sharpie, as neither hers nor its are permanent. She cracks me up. I think she is going to be just fine. And so are you. (say hi to rod serling for me, wouldcha?)
As for the garbage bag of old car goodies, beware. We had an accident years ago that totalled our car. I dumped most of the small stuff into a box so the insurance company could take it away. The box is still in my shed. This was in 1993. So, you aren’t yet the queen of procrastinators. (but then, neither am I…)
Yeah, that list of “why it’s time to rejoin civilization” rings pretty true at my house, too, and I have no car crash to blame for it. Sounds like it was a good — if tough — part of the healing process to retrieve the stuff, ducks included. You guys are on your way out of this for sure.
Yeah, the kitchen faeries don’t live at my house, either. I think they took one look at the place and realized they would never be done and flew away, shrieking, into the night.
Hugs to you and your kids.
I have that itis too!!
PLEASE get new car seats…believe it or not…I was told damage to car seats occur during accidents and we should always replace them. You probably all ready knew this…
Aw, the stitches are adorable. Probably just what you all need to remember the good things that came from this – that everyone’s all right, even the ducks.
The ducks gave me goosebumps.
Chickadee continues to amaze and inspire me. She really is a wonderful little girl, and at least as a silver lining, this horrible even has let her shine in a very special way.
Steff is right about the carseats. I was rearended with no damage to the car and still had to replace the carseats. The insurance company should cover it, though.
Hey, after the laundry fairies finish with your sock basket could you send them along over here? We’ve resorted to acknowleding that the socks *go* in the basket and not caring if they match.
See? Should have kept the black hair. You may have tricked the birdies and woodland creatures into thinking you were Snow White. Those little suckers are surprisingly good at household chores.
I don’t know if this counts for boosters, but I would assume so. Do not reuse them after an accident. Your insurance has to, by law in most states, replace them even after a 20 mph crash. There can be stress damage that might not be seen to the nekkid eye and we want those kidlins safe!
Sounds like things are coming along pretty well. I yammer a lot when I’m nervous, too. (And why shouldn’t you? WOW – that’s been quite an ordeal!)
You mean you aren’t supposed to just wash an outfit as you need it? Laundry isn’t supposed to come overflowing out of every hamper and basket in the house? I guess I’d better work on that. lol
The ducks story was eerie but I’m impressed with Chickadee’s response. And glad you guys could laugh about it. Here’s to getting back to normal!
Have to say I laughed OUT LOUD at yappityyapitis.
The image of the 3 little ducks and the baby one having a droplet of blood on its head brought tears to my eyes. So thankful that you three are not seriously hurt.
((hugs)) to you!
As an aside: Shiz recommended your blog to me :)
We have a frog on the dashboard instead of ducks.
The ducks need seatbelts, too!
And yes, you have to get new carseats. Which I’m sure you knew. Actually, if you’re riding around in the new car I bet you have them already. So I’ll butt out now!
So, so glad you’re ok and laughing…
I think the bloody duck would have made me scream. Or wet my pants. Possibly both.
almost normal is good. i’ll take it.
As someone says in Steel Magnolias, “Laughter through tears is my favorite emotion.” I think I would have lost it at the ducks, so the guy got off easily with yappity yapitis.