Possumblog

The rundown.

Uninteresting details to follow--bail if you wish.

Friday afternoon: Going home, and it FINALLY looks like we might get a bit of rain. Big thunderclouds parked out to the east, one giant one with a sheet of opaque underneath that looked like the color and texture of blue jean dryer lint. We need rain. Got to Trussville, and sure enough, it's raining great big drops, and then buckets.

And then hail.

Dang. The Volvo already HAS hail damage from time spent in the previous owner's care, and I don't want any more. And, of course, there was no place to pull off and get under some cover. Luckily, it was relatively small pieces. Unluckily, there was a LOT of it. I don't think it did anything to the car, though.

Home, found Oldest "doing laundry," (in quotes because she has no clue about how to do laundry efficiently, but I'm not about to show her the right way since she "knows everything"), then find out that Oldest has decided she's not going to the choir lock-in at school because Mom had just called and said part of Chalkville Road was flooded. "Uh, well, you know it's going to drain off. I don't think it'll be flooded by the time you..."

"No! I think I'll just stay here because I don't want to tear up the car or anything!"

As if. She obviously just was looking for an excuse not to go. Whatever.

Reba got home with the kids, managed not to get too wet getting in the house, and I went upstairs to order some pizza. As I'm sitting there, Jonathan brings in a piece of paper. Seems he'd forgotten that they had a solo and ensemble district band competition. At 9:15 a.m. on Saturday. And he had to be there 45 minutes ahead of time. 8:30 a.m. And it was being held at Thompson Middle School in Alabaster. Which is almost an hour away. Meaning we'd have to leave at 7:30 a.m. Meaning we'd have to get up around 6:30 a.m.

On the plus side, he did remember to tell us.

On the negative side, he'd had the sheet for many days now, and it seemed to have slipped his mind. Imagine that.

Pizza arrives, supper starts, Catherine reads her book that she made for Mom for the Mother's Day biographical interview program her class did for all the moms which was sweet beyond compare, meaning that Oldest had to begin her usual smirking snotty derision of it since Catherine was getting attention, which caused Rebecca to tell her to stop it and let Catherine talk, which obviously meant that Oldest was now the victim of everyone being mean to her, and thus began a quickly escalating firefight, until I told everyone just to climb down off it and pipe down. Which, of course, was sufficient to cause Oldest to decide that she WOULD go to the lock-in at school, no matter if it was raining or flooding or anything else, because the idea of being under the thumb of such an oppressive, overbearing father figure was simply too much to bear. Didn't matter that everyone was told to clam up, because to admit that would mean a diminuation of her victimization.

Again, whatever.

She got up and flounced upstairs muttering all the way about how she gets mistreated.

Sometime later, she comes downstairs completely redressed carrying an armload of junk, goes and stuffs it in the car, and off she goes--with my friendly advice to be careful driving since it's still raining outside.

The door from the kitchen to the garage closes, I go into the laundry room to try to sort out the jumbled mass of mismatched clothes she'd previously washed, and the telephone rings.

What fresh hell is this?

I answered. "DAD!? I THINK I HIT THE VOLVO!"

Zeus on a scooter. She had only just gone out the door. The Volvo was parked at the very end of the driveway, allowing enough room for a Kenworth to maneuver. And how do you think you hit something--either you did or you didn't. And why call me on the phone? YOU'RE STANDING OUTSIDE THE *&^%# HOUSE!

"I'll be out in a second." I tried my very best to be as unaffected as possible.

I walked out, got the umbrella, and she was standing there with the car still running. Best I can tell, she just backed straight back and only at the very last second swerved, hitting the front passenger side bumper of the Volvo with the rear driver side bumper of the Focus. I got the flashlight out of her car and looked--the plastic bumper had a few white spiderweb stress cracks in the blue paint, while the sturdy Scandinavian rubber coated bumper of the Volvo looked to have come out on the good end. And, obviously, Ashley wasn't hurt. Not even her pride, because I don't think she ever acknowledged that she had, in fact, actually backed into the car. Reality not being one of those things she's comfortable with.

I quietly told her it was okay and to be careful, which she acknowledged with a huff and off she went.

Rebecca had heard the collision upstairs in her room. She had on her headphones and was listening to music. She said the impact sounded like when the garbage truck drops one of the garbage cans on the driveway. So, I suppose we're quite fortunate that there was no more damage than there was.

The house finally was peaceful, so the girls came to our room and started watching Kindergarten Cop with Mom while I ran down the hill to the grocery store to pick up some paper towels and Sharpie markers, all the while saying to myself, "IT'S NOT A TOOMAH!!"

Home, girls watching television, phone rings.

What fresh hell is this?

Crying, with the background sound of boisterous teenagers. "::sniff:: Can I talk to MOM!?::snort::"

Gladly.

I got the girls to go on to bed since it was past 10:30 and I was going to have to get up early.

And the phone call?

Well, she's been on the outs with #6, mainly because he's a guy and an immature one at that. Much like I'd been saying all along, if anyone were ever to chance to actually listen to me. Even though it's been two months since #6 has called her, and even though the last time they did talk he "yelled" at her and told her he couldn't talk to her, she still had it in her mind that they were boyfriend/girlfriend. Seems the clouds of reality had never darkened her thinking, even though it would be obvious even to a planarian that things were officially over between them. Her agony of late was that she had since become enamored with Potential Beau#7, yet couldn't quite bring herself to "dump" #6.

SO, she decided it would be a good idea to use the choir lock-in event as a suitable venue to call #6 and break up with him. Big captive audience for her to talk to about it, after all. Even though she's just about managed to alienate all of them with her constant melodramatics. So, the call was made, and boofrickinhoo, "HE DUMPED ME!!"

Reba asked her why this was such a big deal, since Oldest didn't want to date him anymore anyway. "BUT I WANTED TO DUMP HIM!!"

Again, I'd say she was about two months behind the curve on that one.

Mom told her to forget about it and quit crying and get some sleep. Obviously, Oldest wasn't about to do any of that.

But at least there were no more phone calls Friday evening.

AND THEN, to bed.

NEXT: The exciting Saturday fun!

Posted by Terry Oglesby at May 14, 2007 09:41 AM