Why Me?

Weird things seem to happen to me when I’m alone or alone with the children. 

Several days ago, I dropped the children off at tennis and returned home.  As I’m walking past the turtle aquarium, I happen to see one of those creatures climbing out of the aquarium.  I did a double take in time to see the stupid thing fall out.  You heard me, or rather you read me – the turtle fell out of the aquarium!  And the aquarium is about 4 feet high off the ground, but alas there was Franklin on his back.  Just in case you have not read all of my posts, I’ll bring you up to speed.  I don’t like turtles.  I don’t like reptiles.  I see a turtle move its neck, I see a turtle trying to swim, and I want to vomit.

So when that turtle fell on its back, I ran upstairs and called my husband.  He is 100 miles away, what can he do?  I checked on it and realized that it somehow managed to turn over.  When I saw that, I dashed upstairs to inform my husband.  He asked if I was going to put it back in the aquarium, and naturally I differed.  There was no way in hell I was touching that thing!  He told me there was a net under the fish aquarium - I can just guide it and put it back.  Since the kids would not be home for a couple of hours, I finally concurred.  But when I attempted to oblige, I just couldn’t.  I didn’t have what it took. 

I flew upstairs and closed all the doors just in case Franklin went on a joy walk.  But later as I relayed the story to the kids, it hit me that from the time the turtle fell out to the time I called my husband to the time I called my neighbor and she sent her son to help, that turtle did not move one millimeter; so there was no way it would have been able to climb those steps.  Hey, we are all entitled to a jackass thought…..or two!

The other day my husband drove my van.  The next day my daughter and I went on a quick run.  There was no issue with the van until later in the day when he had left for work, and I was taking her to a basketball game.  The jalopy made this frightful noise every time I accelerated.  I called my husband and did my best impression of an old minivan making a strange noise.  Of course he had no clue.  He promised it would be okay.  My daughter was fine with his prognosis, but I kept looking in the rear view mirror to see if there was smoke.  It doesn’t matter what kind of noise my vehicle makes, my first thought is that it is going to explode.  I know:  I watch too many powerful movies, but this is America.  If it rains too much, people die.  If it rains too little, people die.  If there is too much snow, people die.  If there is too much sun, people die.  Therefore, Myra is not taking any chances whatsoever.

And to make matters worse, we had just gotten stuck in traffic.  There is never that much traffic on this road so I plugged in the GPS for a detour, but the stupid thing wouldn’t work.  I was about to lose it when my level headed daughter reminded me that I just bought an Android cell phone a few days ago with a built in navigation system.  Luckily, she has more of her father’s genes.  She doesn’t buckle under pressure.  She doesn’t wear her heart on her sleeves.  She has a great poker face.  She never panics.  Her twin on the other hand should be my twin.  We panic first and think later.

Case in point:  He participated in a winter soccer league, and the first game was on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.  As we left his basketball practice, one of the mothers told me it was snowing badly outside.  I was about to panic until I got outside and saw just a minuscule dusting of snow.  I thought to myself, “You really can’t listen to other people.”

The day prior, I drove to the location because the email regarding the directions was very complex.  I decided that I may as well figure out how to get there during the day and set the location in my GPS.  We left the basketball practice an hour before the soccer game was scheduled to start. 

When we passed the exit that I thought we should have taken, I was surprised that the nice lady in the GPS didn’t instruct me to turn.  My surprise turned to horror when she said, “you have reached your destination,” and we were still on the highway.  She was right because we were in front of the building, but she was wrong because we were at the rear of the building.  Apparently the GPS followed the coordinates I set, notwithstanding where the entrance was.  I looked at my son, who was about to lose it, and promised him that I’d get him there.

We took the next exit, but the lady in the GPS was adamant that we should get off on the middle of the highway and jump over the fence.  Believe me, I thought about hoisting him over.  When I realized, I changed the destination to Home; at least I’d be able to get back on familiar territory.  But in the interim, we found ourselves on a side road that had a lot more snow than the main roads.  Since there was no traffic, the snow had settled.  As I attempted to get us out of that predicament, things turned for the worse.  The van got stuck and could only go backwards----backwards up a hill!!!

I put the vehicle in Park and was about to break down and bawl my eyes out because it is now almost 8 pm in the middle of January; it is pitch black, and we are lost.  I know it wouldn’t have helped, but it was the only solution I could think of.  I let out a shriek until I realized my son was way ahead of me.  He had this, ‘we are gonna die’ look and burst into tears.  His younger brother consoled him.  My daughter gave me a reassuring look, and I thought to myself, “When I grow up, I want to be like her.”

I reversed a little at a time and eventually turned the car around. We drove up and asked for directions out to the main road.  When we finally got on familiar territory, I realized what that mother was referring to because the van started sliding on black ice.  I wouldn’t call this panic, but my heart skipped a few beats.  My son is on the verge of panicking, and I thought I should just go home.  My daughter calmly looked at me and said, “You thought that was scary?  I wasn’t even scared earlier.”

But you know what, an incident occurred that made me realized I’m not only alone for the bad things.  In one of my son’s All Star Baseball games, he was the first baseman and I saw a ball heading between the first and second bases.  Next thing I knew, my little pumpkin, my pain in the ass kid, the sole reason for me getting gray hair, dove towards the second base with arms outstretched and caught that ball in midair.

My first thought was, “I have to call my husband.”  Can’t call him only when fit hits the shan, you know.  But it made me think that in life we really have to take the good with the bad because perspectively speaking life always won’t be a bed of roses.