Laura Chapman Writes

I woke up with a runny nose. The 50/50 kind that sometimes just goes away and sometimes turns into a horrible allergy ambush. I braced myself for the latter and hoped my counterattack would work. I had WAY too much to do and didn’t have time for that kind of thing.

But I wasn’t surprised.

It had been one of those weeks. The kind where every day seems harder than it has to be. The kind where everywhere I went I had to haul around a car full of need-to-dump-house-stuff because there simply wasn’t time to get rid of it.  The kind where my to-do list just kept getting longer.

I was really looking forward to the weekend and my postponed birthday dinner.

But on Saturday when we got there the restaurant was slammed. So slammed we joked about having to catch the cows before our dinner could be prepared. Even my complimentary hot-out-of-the-oven-birthday-cookie-with-ice-cream and cute little candle came to me like an afterthought with no birthday wishes and clearly no possibility of rounding up servers to sing a song.

I should have left a smaller tip. (The cookie was still good.)

The next day, the realization of no food in the house due to not getting to the store on Friday as planned meant a major grocery run was in order. I hate grocery shopping on weekends.  So I asked my daughter if she wanted to come along to make it more pleasant.  Plus, she needed groceries too, so she agreed.

I took my five year old with me, in spite of offers to leave him behind happily watching recorded episodes of “Battle Bots,” so he could “help” entertain my daughter’s adorable yet sometimes very demanding ten month old.

What was I thinking?

At least my nose had stopped running.

But first I had to go to the “Drop Off Convenience Center for Refuse and Recycling” to make room in the back of my van for two loads of groceries. It was my second attempt since the day before when I tried there was a line of twenty cars waiting just to get in so I figured one more day didn’t matter that much so I’d try again the next.

But NOW there were even MORE cars waiting. Did I miss the memo about city-wide Spring Cleaning? I quickly did the math and it was clear I would be delayed at least an hour. Meanwhile I was the one “entertained” by non-stop five year old chatter.

“What if I was a mosquito and landed on your head right now?”

“I would probably smack you dead.”

My math was wrong. I was almost two hours late picking up daughter and baby.

She had enjoyed the same kind of week and somehow the conversation went from venting to politics and the ridiculous election. Surely we had better things to talk about?

Apparently not.

After parking the car we each grabbed a shopping cart and entered the much more crowded than usual store. My big chatty guy seemed to completely forget our “no touching” rule and adorable little guy was not happy unless he was being offered a non-stop stream of keep-a-baby-quiet-treats. We finally finished and headed outside with the help of a nice bagger wearing a bright green tie.  I complimented him on his taste.

And that’s when it happened.

WE COULDN’T FIND THE CAR.

There are few things more embarrassing to me than losing my car in a parking lot.  The only consolation was my daughter, the one with the younger, much farther away from potential memory issues brain, couldn’t find it either.

It was only a moderately large lot–not huge by any means, but neither of us had any memory of where we had parked. We searched up and down the aisles with poor green tie guy following us until, out of desperation, my daughter handed me the baby and said, “Wait here.” She finally found the car parked right next to the entrance to the store. Seriously. Green tie guy was not amused.

Heading home we couldn’t believe NEITHER of us had a clue where we had parked the car.  How in the world had that even happened?  How had we possibly been SO distracted to not remember the GREAT parking space we found so we wouldn’t have to walk? Then we said it together.

“Donald Trump!”

It was too funny. And our laughter about it somehow mercifully displaced some of the frustration of the previous week. My daughter even said, “You should write a blog about it, Mom. You could call it “How we lost our car because of Donald Trump.” It would be funny!”

Hmmm, maybe. 

Challenge accepted.

If she was wrong, blame her.

Disclaimer:  The previous isn’t intended in any way to be a political statement for or against any candidate, except perhaps to illustrate the absurdity of politics.