I only listen to country music when I go to the dentist, because he likes to add to the torture. But I am very concerned about people in Nashville. They must have the saddest lives.
Today, I think I empathized with them a bit.
Well. Actually it started yesterday, which was a snow day.
Not the…
bundle up, go sledding, build a snowman, come inside and have hot cocoa, curl up by the fire and watch a movie… kind of snow day.
No, only kids get those kind of snow days. Moms get…
“I’m bored,” piles of wet clothes, whining because the glove is missing, arguing over the Xbox, “why didn’t you buy hot cocoa?”, no personal space… kind of snow days. Which are not quite as exciting.
So, while I should have been doing happy dances because JCPS had declared the roads drivable and everything was going back to our regularly scheduled programming, my minivan thwarted me.
(The fact that I even have to say “my minivan” should have been enough for a sad country song.)
But, as if my imposed soccer mom status wasn’t enough, it also decided to freeze its automatic doors shut.
This wasn’t really a shocker, since it had been tormenting me this way all winter. Ironically, it only froze shut on the side that the baby-carrier base was strapped in. And it wasn’t satisfied with just a door that wouldn’t open. When it refused to budge, the internal sensor decided the door was indeed open, and felt compelled to warn me of impending doom. By beeping. All the way to school.
Eventually by shoving on the door, I convinced it that it was shut.
With the beeping stopped, and since we didn’t have hot cocoa or milk or bread, I followed the school drop-off by going to the grocery store, before our lives came to a grinding halt via another snow day.
You know I wasn’t going to touch Enoch’s door again, and risk the beeping. So after struggling to get him out by crawling across the seat from the opposite side, I tried to get my reusable grocery bags out of my trunk. Turns out, that was also frozen shut. The trunk is kind of important for grocery shopping, but whateves… I was in too deep to stop now.
After I had successfully purchased the hot cocoa and other necessities, I loaded the baby back in and shoved all the groceries into the front passenger seat.
I just wanted to drive home. But now the sensor for the trunk was going off. Eventually, I just gave up and drove home. Beep. Beep. Beep. All. The. Way.
When we arrived at our house, the back door (that’s been sticking recently) refused to open, so I lugged the baby carrier across the snowy yard and through the icy bushes to go in the front door.
And did I mention that I forgot my gloves? And that I spilled my coffee coming back into the house? But that’s OK, because the coffee had gotten cold anyway.
This is my sad country song. But I’m singing, “amazing grace” and sipping my beer cold coffee with my dogs at my feet. I’m praying for the soldiers. And it’ll all be OK, because I’ve got my pickup truck minivan to see me through.
You know, Pittsburgh life didn’t seem like it was going to be too bad. After a few days of freezingness, it warmed up and spring seemed to have sprung. Oh, how naive I was! Winter has returned with a vengeance. But I can’t really complain, because it is a beautiful vengeance.During the warm spell, we had some rainy days, which turned the creek in our wooded backyard into a raging torrent. I love the sound of the rushing water outside our windows. Now, before all the parental instincts rise up in you, we do not let our son play in the backyard, he has no access to the creek, and he will not die an early death due to drowning.