Forget Me Not

Yesterday, I reached my breaking point around 9:40 in the morning- at least a solid three hours before I usually reach it.  The kids were touching me and I didn't want them touching me.  They were touching each other and provoking each other and I decided that the only way to keep anyone from touching anyone else was to pile them in the car- even though it was a good hour and twenty minutes before Ella's gymnastics class.  I needed them to be restrained, I needed myself to be restrained, and I needed to drown out their whines with some Mumford & Sons.   Period.



So we drove around.  And I decided that time goes incredibly slowly when you don't have anywhere you have to be.  I refused to go into Target because killing an hour there would mean killing our disposable income for the rest of the month.  I thought about going to McDonalds for a bacon egg-n-cheese biscuit, but hadn't I already done that this week?  I considered the park that was up the road, but just didn't have it in me to run around after the kids.  So we just drove.  Up and down the interstate.  In and out of parking lots.  About every two minutes, Ella asked if we were at gymnastics yet and why were we driving so much and could she please get out of the car now and a couple of other random questions, and I think after the first dozen questions, I just started saying "yes."  I'm not positive, but I think I might have told her she could have a pony.



Finally, I decided we would just pull into the parking lot of the gym and I would let her play with my phone and Milo had a V-tech laptop and hopefully that would keep them occupied until her class started at 11.  It was 10:30, but maybe if we made it to 10:50, I would just take her in early and her teachers would let her run around before her class started.  I was actually kind of proud of myself for being early, for once.   We would be there on time- ahead of time, actually.   She'd have time to get her shoes off, find her cubby, stretch and warm up, and I wouldn't be the lame mom who was once again busting in the door ten minutes late to class.



The minutes ticked by.  Finally, it was 10:51 and I decided we could go on in.  We walked through the door, I put her hair in a pony tail, took her shoes off, and her teacher whisked her into the gym.  Wow. A lot of other kids got there early, too.  In fact, I didn't see any other parents.  That was kind of odd.  Everyone usually gets dropped off around the same time and the lobby is usually hopping.  Hmm.  I grabbed Milo by the hand and we turned to walk out the door to run some errands.


And that's when her teacher called out, "see you at 11:30!"



11:30?  Her class is only a half hour today??  And then it hit me.



Oh.


Ohh.


Her class didn't start at 11.  It started at 10:30.  Just like the other six times we had been there.



I'm not exactly sure why, but all of the sudden, I remembered the time my dad was filling up the family car on one of our many long car trips between Lousiana (where we were currently living) and Virginia.   It was late and we had been on the road for a good seven hours by then.  He walked inside to pay the cashier, hopped back in the car, and we took off.   With the nozzle still in the gas tank.  Ripped it clear off of the hose.


I tried to hold it in, but soon, both my mom and I were overcome in fits of laughter as we watched my poor dad first turn around in shock, then hang his head in defeat, and finally get out of the car, walk over to pick up the nozzle and take it inside to the cashier.   For years after that, I wondered how someone could forget something like that.  It must really suck to get old, I thought.


And now I know I was right.  It does suck.


Like when I pulled up to the bank earlier this week to return the tube that I had forgotten to put back in the machine and that I found only after I'd gotten home.  Or when I put the milk in the pantry and the cheerios in the refrigerator.  Or the times- way too many to count- when I've left wet towels in the washer for a couple of days.  Or when I made my kid show up a half hour late to a class she's been attending for weeks, when I was sitting in the parking lot for that entire half hour watching the minutes tick by.



I take small comfort in knowing that one day, parts of her brain will go dormant too.   It makes me smile just a little bit, actually.



And I will tell her that it's funny, the things she'll remember.  And sometimes, it's even funnier what she won't.