Get in the Car and Buckle Up

We're home.

We had to check out by 10 AM. That meant 9 adults, 2 children and one dog had to; eat breakfast, get dressed, make up beds, gather up linens, load the dishwasher, clean out the fridge, load up vehicles, and return keys all by 945. Oh, and find several pairs of wayward flip-flops.

And we did it.

We should get a medal.

There were four pots of coffee involved.

Sure hope I locked the door.

Once we got on the road it was clear sailing. Up until we had to change the DVD for our youngest granddaughter from "101 Dalmations" to "Rapunzel". That involved a little teamwork on hubby's and my part. Okay, I am not a whiz at DVD's, setting clocks, or anything involving a timer. But I could see.

I know you're thinking "Who was driving?" He was driving.

Okay, hold on, it's just that he had on his sunglasses, not his reading glasses, and I wear my readers all the time because you never know when you might be in the middle of nowhere trying to change a DVD at 55 mph and need to see the little screen between the steering wheel and glove box. (do they still call it a glove box?)

Anyhow, we pop out "Dalmations", easy enough, and insert "Rapunzel".

There's alot of choices. And there's alot of arrows, and why are there two menu options?

He presses something and it gives us audio choices. That's not it.

I press something and it tells us we can't make selections while driving. We concede it might be safer to pull over, and it's not like it's going to let us do anything until we put the car in park anyway. We see an empty church parking lot and he pulls in the Yukon.

There was a reason our granddaughter was in the car. There was a reason we were in a CHURCH parking lot. Not that words were exchanged, no, we used glances and looks instead.

"Okay," he says "Let's get out the book."

He must see no hope at all if he is resorting to reading the directions. Two touches later, "Rapunzel" was rolling. How simple!

After all this activity, I have to go to the bathroom. Normally I tell him about 20 minutes from the drop dead time. Gives him plenty of time to pass a few exits. But it just comes over me and I need to go. Now.

"Oh, there's a CVS!" I exclaim "Pull over and let me go in there."

I have this thing about bathrooms. I will use when backed into a corner, Mc Donald's bathrooms, they are usually cleaner. But by far I prefer to go to bathrooms at drugstores; Walgreen's, Rite-Aid, or CVS. I mean, who thinks of going there just to use the bathroom?

They do let the public use their bathrooms, but you can tell about 95% of the bathroom traffic is from employees. They have potpourri in their bathrooms. And good toilet paper, and floral scented hand-soap. Yup, I scored comfort and cleanliness when I saw a CVS.

I did have a "Duh" moment coming home. That sometimes happens.

I have another thing, this one about fruit and veggie stands. I hate to pass them up without stopping and getting something. We saw a big sign for fresh local corn and he knew I wanted to stop. It was pretty packed in there, lots of produce lovers. I found the corn bins and looked for the bags. There were only plastic bags available. I don't know about you, but my corn always rips the plastic bags. I end up trying to fold the plastic around the corn and "package" it to get it home. I was hoping that they had paper bags by the register. I asked her if they had any paper bags for the corn.

She looked at me and said "Silk side down."

That's it, that's all she said.

It was like daybreak, you know the sun coming up and angels trumpeting the arrival of a new day.

Silk side down!

We were so hungry by the time we got into town, that we pulled into Sonic for lunch. Sonic has half-priced drinks from 2 to 4 PM every day so if I am out and about I drop by for some tea. But that's a drive-thru mission. This is eating, so we have to pull in a stall and place an order. Do you know you can pay for it right there at the menu? There's an ATM-like slot and it takes all kinds of plastic, why carry cash?

The menu has a lot of choices, we finally figure out what we want and he pushes the "Place Order" button.

We wait.

And wait.

And still we wait.

I get out of the car and get the dog some water for her bowl and we still are waiting.

I ask hubby to push the button again.

He looks at me and says, "See how the button is red? That's because I pushed it. So they know we are on-line and waiting."

"On-line?" I wonder.... well all I know is that they aren't asking us what burger we want so there's a problem.

"Push the button again." I suggest a little more forcibly that the first time I asked.

He doesn't say a word, just makes a sound between a sigh and a strangle and leans out the window and pushes it.

"Welcome to Sonic. How may I help you?" a chipper voice booms from the speaker.

He slowly says " A coincidence."

Whatever.

So we order, eat, and then decide to have one last vacation fling and order ice cream.

He pushes the button.

We wait.

And wait.

I look at him.

He looks away.

I cough.

He pushes the button again.

"Welcome to Sonic. How may I help you?"

What a coincidence.

It's Only Hair

My youngest granddaughter is 5 years old, soon to be 16. Oops! Did I say that? I meant 6.

After sunning all day at the beach, she comes into my bathroom, while I am in the shower, to take a bath and get ready for dinner. You would have thought she was headed to the prom.

When she gets out of the shower, it's all about the hair. Already. At 5.

It's very helpful that I had 3 daughters and am used to hair emergencies.

So she gets out and dries off and immediately surveys my inventory of combs and brushes and finds it sorely lacking, for I have only one brush and one comb. And the brush isn't even round.

"Nina, (that's what she calls me), do you have a curling iron?" she says eyeing my brush dubiously.

"No Honey, I don't use a curling iron. But I do have a great hair dryer". Well you can tell that isn't gonna cut it, I better think quick.

"Why would you want a curling iron? No one uses them anymore, they are so passe". I try to be flippant about it - apparently it works because she doesn't even ask what passe means.

"Well do you have clips? You could dry my hair, flip it up on the sides and clip it with pretty little butterfly clips".

"I replied, "This isn't Walgreens. What you see is what you get, here's a rubber band."

Her little mouth sets in a firm line. She is still determined to walk out of here like she was done up for a photo shoot.

"Nina, this isn't working. It's so PLAIN!"

"Do I look like a hairstylist? Am I wearing a smock? Is my hair even remotely like anything you have ever seen in a magazine? Here have some hair gel, I know how to scrunch."

As I get older I have realized two truths; you can humor yourself out of almost any situation, and if you can't, bribery is not going to send you to Hell.

Humor is not cutting it so I work move to stage 2 - bribery.

"Hey, lookey here, I have some eye shadow. How about if you drop the whole hair thing and I will let you use some eyeshadow?"

"What color do you have?"

"I have golden brown and grey."


" I want gold. Can you make a pony tail?"


Sure I can.