Two Stories, Two Debacles, Two Different Endings

A Story That Starts Bad And Ends Up Good

Saturday was cold. Not just temperature-wise, but there was also a biting, blustery, north wind that cut through you like a serrated knife. I was on my way to a town 40 miles away to watch my daughter sing with her show choir at a competition, and DAMMIT, the car needed gas.

It was at this point that I came to the conclusion that there should be a law that women do not have to pump their own gas. When they pull up to the gas pump, uniformed men should run out to the car to fill it with gas, wash the windows, check the oil, empty the trash, and bring a fountain Diet Coke, like in the old Texaco commercials. (Don't argue that they didn't empty the trash NOR bring soft drinks to the car; you have your fantasies, I'll have mine.)

So, I'm bundled up against the cold and wind, my eyes watering, filling the tank. As I remove the nozzle from the tank, however, between the gale force winds and me POSSIBLY bumping it with the nozzle because I was shivering so, the gas cap fell and rolled under the car. Under. The. Car.

You might expect that I panicked about then, but I did not. Because the hamster in the little wheel that is my brain ran a little harder, and I had a brainstorm: I calmly walked over to where the squeegee was sitting in its brackish water bath, removed it, reached under the car to where the gas cap lay, taunting me, and pulled that sucker out from under the car like a craps dealer raking in the dice.

I felt like a rock star.

A Story That Starts Good And Ends Up Bad

This week, the preschool will be celebrating Pastries with Pops, a time when dad (or grandpa or uncle) can come to preschool with his kiddo, have a doughnut and some coffee or juice, and check out the classroom, since, commonly, dads aren't in our room very often, as they are usually at work at that time. We make a gift for our dads to take with them; the primary class made paperweights by gluing a picture of each child to a river rock and then painting the whole thing with sparkly varnish and the pre-k class made golf towels with a handprint in one corner and the child's name and date written with acrylic paint along the bottom. 

With our extra week of Christmas vacation, we've been a little pressed for time, but we got the projects done in both classes. The paperweights were pretty easy to do, but the hand towels are a bit more labor-intensive. I have a system of checks and balances so I know which child belongs to which handprint: as I make each child's handprint on the golf towel, I write the child's name on a sticky note and stick it to the towel, then lay them out to dry. This, I did last Wednesday. On Friday, after the kids left at noon, I spent over an hour taking each towel, removing the sticky note and setting it next to me (step 2 in the checks and balances), then writing the child's name and date on the towel with the acrylic paint (not to brag or anything, but I can write names with pencils, pens, sharpies, crayons, markers, glue, acrylic pain, and glitter). I left them to dry over the weekend (which was a three-day one, due to the Martin Luther King birthday holiday on Monday), then after the primary class left on Tuesday, I went to the pre-k room to put the towels in gift bags and attach the cards the kids made to each bag. My last set of checks and balances is to match all the cards with the towels by setting the card on top of the corresponding towel. Towel in bag, card stapled to bag, BOOM, done.

Today, I matched up all the cards to towels until I got down to one card and one towel. That didn't match each other. WHAT HAPPENED TO MY CHECKS AND BALANCES?!
I went through all the towels and cards again to see if I had mixed them up, and what I found was two towels with Leah written on them. As I only have ONE Leah, this was not a good sign. And, as there was NO towel for Lexi, that was not a good sign, either.  So, in spite of, or in defiance to, my checks and balances, bottom line is I MESSED IT UP AND IT CAN'T BE FIXED.

The event with the dads is first thing in the morning. 

One dad will be getting an IOU.

I SUCK.