Well, yet another exercise in schedule coordination.
Boy was supposed to be coming back in at 3:00, and we'd committed to taking Ashley down to Faulkner University because they were having an overnight meet-n-greet event for high school juniors. It started at 5:00 p.m., which meant we needed to leave Trussville no later than 3:30.
Yes, this is what's known as "cutting it a little too close for comfort."
We had Reba's mom and dad to act as something of a backup in case Jonathan was late getting back, but THEY had a homecoming where they go to church, and weren't sure they were going to be back in time. If not, one of us was going to have to wait for Jonathan and the rest of the folks would have to go to Montgomery. (And as it turned out, they didn't get to leave from across the county until 3:00, so they would have never made it in time anyway.)
And no, allowing Oldest to just drive herself down and back is a ludicrous, insane idea, and you should know that by now.
And there was also a bridal shower at church, and a thing for the elementary kids, but both of these just had to go unattended by us--some things just don't fit on the dry-erase marker board calendar.
Off to church, then, and then back to the house for some lunch, did some last minute checking to see how long the drive-time is to Mungummy, yep, hour and a half, and got a call from Boy around noon, and then one at 2:30 heralding his return from the wilds of Camp Jackson.
He was filthy, stinky, and had brought back food. NO! NO bring backs! They had a tray of meat left, and some eggs, and some butter and milk. And a stack of disposable dinnerware, which I told them to go take inside and put with their chuckbox so they won't have to buy it the next time. "But we've already put the chuckboxes up."
::sigh::
I'm just glad it wasn't Boy who said that, or I woulda cuffed him with a dope slap on the back of the head.
"Just go put in in the hut, and you can put it in your box tomorrow evening."
Unload, unload, unload. It's getting uncomfortably close to 3:00, and everyone is still a model of disorganization and redundant effort. You'd figure about the second or third time that you've loaded and unloaded the same things, you'd have it a bit more scienced out. Or not.
Anyway, what with all the wandering around and wasted effort, it finally got to where it was interfering with my critical path, so I made an emergency request of the senior troop leader for Boy to be dismissed, which was then relayed up the chain of command to the Scoutmaster standing next to him, then back down to the senior troop leader and from thence to Lowly Scout that he could leave.
TO THE POSSUMOBILE!
Which isn't really quite as fast as a superhero's car should be.
I'm just saying...
Puttered up the hill to the house at a more than legal clip, phoned ahead to Reba to have the shower started and some clothes ready for him, came to a screeching halt at the door to the Possum Burrow, had him go charging upstairs while I unpacked the cold(ish) stuff he'd brought back.
Milk--check
Tray of meat--check, although sorta runny.
Butter--check
Eggs--ch--WHY YOU LITTLE @%!^@&%$!
They'd put broken eggshells back into the carton. Must have looked just like a trash bag or something. So the inside of the carton is full of goo now.
Whatever.
Boy came back down the stairs at full tilt, Oldest flounced out to the van with her bag and pillow, Catherine came back inside, Rebecca went outside, Oldest came inside, Boy went upstairs, Catherine went outside, Rebecca came inside and went upstairs, Oldest flounced out, Reba went out, I went out, Boy came out wearing his jeans and a nice polo shirt, AND a pair of ugly Crocs. "Son, go put on your loafers--you don't need to wear those to church tonight!" (We were going to go to church there on campus down in Montgomery, and I wanted not to leave too bad of an impression of us). Inside he went, then came back wearing his church shoes, which aren't loafers, but black lace up oxfords. The combination of black dress shoes, white socks, and every so slightly too short jeans was not an admirable one. He looked like Cliff Claven gone casual.
Back inside to get the Crocs back on. He came out, Rebecca came out, and we left the house at 3:30.
And immediately, conflict arose over what would be watched on the DVD player.
"If anyone says one more thing, it gets unplugged and no one watches anything."
"CATHERINE! STOP WHY YOU..."
Of course, it had to be Oldest, because of the four kids, she's the only one immature enough to blame other people for forcing her to scream and cause everyone to be unhappy, rather than just shut up and watch a movie not of her choosing.
"Pass it up here."
The rest of the trip passed silently.
Made it to the appointed spot at exactly 5:00 p.m., got checked in, waited a bit, and talked with the nice young lady who was overseeing registration. Waited, went to the restroom, got some water, and finally it was time to head across the way to the church building. That's some big place. And it was way yonder full of people. Oddly enough, we were sitting in a section with very few people who would sing. It bothered Rebecca a lot, along with the two girls sitting in front of her who talked the entire time and passed notes and fidgeted with their hair.
Me?
Well, I was having my own personal crisis with unwanted perspiration, sitting, as I was, directly underneath one of those global-warming-producing 200 watt spotlamps. They're great for keeping food warm at McDonald's, and turning a chubby man into a sweaty pile of meat in a wool suit. However, they aren't that conducive to thoughts of a higher nature.
After church, got waylaid by a kind white-haired gentleman who was greeting visitors, and got very excited he'd found someone from our way, since they had a member in a nursing home with family in Leeds, and they'd been looking for a way to get a church in the area to contact them, and so in one of those works-in-mysterious-ways type of deals, we showed up at the right time and place to be able to help out. Nice fellow. He asked what I did for a living, what brought us to town, that sort of thing. I asked him what he did, and it turned out he works for the college.
"Oh! What do you teach?"
"Oh, well, no--they won't let me teach--they made me the senior vice president instead."
I offered him my solemn condolences.
Found out we know a lot of the same folks, and by the time I had to go find Reba, you'd have thought we'd been buddies for ages. I like folks like that. Met up with the rest of the brood and Reba and the girls walked on over to the coffeeshop where the juniors were meeting, and Boy and I went to get the luggage. I thought at first we were going to have to lug that mess, but I saw there was ample parking right in the front door of the place where we needed to unload, so we rolled around and hopped out and took her things inside, tried not to further embarrass her with our presence, and headed on back toward home.
With a stop at Shoney's for supper, which lasted WAY too long. We didn't get back until 10:25. And golly, what a shocker, Rebecca STILL HAD HOMEWORK TO DO!
Grr.
I think she finally finished it.
ANYway, that what all happened this weekend. And then some.
Posted by Terry Oglesby at April 23, 2007 12:28 PM