My most recent occurred Sunday night when I was gathering my family's things and preparing to leave my brother's house toward the end of a birthday party for my daughter and two nieces. It had been a busy day and a very fun party, and I was looking forward to getting home, with a 30-minute drive home still ahead. We piled Madelyn's newly unwrapped presents in a box and leftover cake in another. Coats had been donned and Madelyn was graciously saying goodbye to the family members that still remained.
The moment hit me specifically as I braced myself against the impending chill to take an armful of stuff out to the car before laying down the final "it's time to go" ultimatum. I went for my keys, and instantaneously recalled where I had put them: inside the blue bag I brought for my husband containing a change of clothes since he had to join us there directly from work. After a long day of said work, he left the party about an hour earlier than we, and--you guessed it--took the bag home with him.
OH CRAP.
A quick glance around the room allowed that distinct probability to fuse its way into reality. I made the dreadful call to my exhausted husband, who had already made the 30-minute drive home: "remember when I told you I was putting the keys in that blue bag?" The question was at first met with aggravated silence, understandably.
Now, my sister lives near me, so perhaps Madelyn and I could have ridden home with her family and returned to get my truck the next day. I had even left it unlocked, so having a carseat for Madelyn would not be a problem. One minor detail prevented this reasonable solution, however. I had chosen to park in my brother's narrow driveway directly behind his carpet cleaning van--and he had jobs scheduled early the next morning.
We also considered a convoluted plan of riding with my parents to the extra car they had left at their church, then having my mom take me to meet Gary partway and get the keys from him. But when we realized that either my mom or Gary would have to drive me all the way back to my brother's house anyway, it became obvious that having Gary just bring me the keys was the simplest, least burdensome solution under the circumstances.
Such a bummer. Mostly for Gary, unfortunately, since he had to leave home and spend an extra hour driving, whereas I (despite my eagerness to get home) was able to enjoy a few more minutes visiting with my brother, and Madelyn got to play with her cousin's new Tinkerbell dress-up dolls.
What are your memorable "oh crap" moments?
1 comment:
Oh, that sucks. The only thing that comes to mind recently was on one of our plane flights, we were all ready to bust out the video iPod for one of our travel-weary kids......and then realized it had been gate-checked inside a carry-on suitcase. Doh!
Post a Comment