3 Strikes

Yesterday I made my trek west. Solo. I.e. (i.e.? Do you capitalize that at the beginning of a sentence? Are you even allowed to begin a sentence with "i.e."?), not as fun as the trek east, with fellow passenger Riley Francis. I was anxious about the drive and began the day in a grumpy gills mode, thought at one point I was perhaps lost (I was not), almost got into an accident (because someone decided to just go ahead and pull into my lane without, oh ya know...checking her mirrors and/or blindspot before doing so), but ultimately I made it. Joni Mitchell contributed greatly, thank you Darling. "Come in from the Cold," "Help Me," and "River" for sure got put on repeat, and her voice was like a warm compress on the abrasions of my worn-out, overstretched, 20-something heart and mind. And, of course, Dibby greeted me with abundant purring at the door, the ultimate heart balm. Sweet baby.

Along the road, as well as upon my return home, there were of course some unfortunate events. I will share the top three with you here:

I passed a sign advertising a hotel. At one point, (I assume) this sign had said "Free hot breakfast" on it. Well the word "breakfast" had been entirely removed, not even leaving a trace of visible paint to put drivers at ease who would have to read the two extra words that had since been added to the sign. The combination of words, new and old, were juxtaposed in a way so that I, innocent driver who didn't know what was about to hit her, now read:

NEW
FREE HOT
MANAGEMENT

Wow, Friends. One more life reminder of the value of proofreading.

Incident #2: On the final stretch of my trip, within my own city limits, where I was beginning to get back my sense of being among my own people, where management team members are not illicitly advertised, I lost my sense of security. A minivan was in front of me, and on the back of the car was a large 1' x 1' magnet that said, "WIFE WANTED," followed by a hand written phone number. I am not making this up. I am still pretty speechless about this so we will just move on to Incident #3.

After arriving home, post Cuddle Sessions 1 and 2 with Dibbs, I called my parents to let them know I had arrived safely (as I do not partake in cell phone ownership and had not communicated with anyone since morning). The conversation wandered, was moving along, when Dad said to me, "Mom wants to wish you a happy Quarter Birthday." I mulled this over, then realized, ah, yes, I am in fact 24 years and 3 months old today. Dad's response to this, however, was not, "Oh how quickly you are growing up" or "I'm so blessed to have such a lovely, talented daughter." No. Instead he said over his shoulder to my mom something in a tone casual enough that had one not understood English he would have suspected that perhaps my father was commenting on an upcoming middle school band concert ("Oh, is Suzie's recital on Thursday already?") or a new flavor of Gushers advertised in the Sunday paper ("Hmm, now available in raspberry...Pass the muffins, please"). What he said was,

"Is today conception day?"

My father, ladies and gentlemen. To this my mother yelled, "She'll never call us again!"

I actually found Incident #3 to be the least disturbing and most hilarious of all of my day's TMI/disturbing events.