My little guy joined The Good News Club after school on Thursdays.
It's a Christian club that meets for an hour once a week. Seems
simple enough, right? He stays after school, then I race out to pick him
up after I get off work at 4:30. No sweat!
The first week went off without a hitch.
5:00 rolls around, and *boom!* I'm there on time. Huzzah!
The second week....? Well, let's
just say that my brain took a vacation at a most-inopportune time.
5:10 p.m. My cell phone rings.
I ask myself, "Whose number is that, do you suppose?" and
decide to go ahead and press [send]. Good thing!
The voice at the other end sweetly
introduces herself, and that’s when my horror sets in. “Oh, crap!” I mindlessly exclaim. (Never mind
that she introduced herself as a pastor’s wife – oops!) Apologizing, I explain to her where I am, and
that it will take me at least 20 minutes to get to the school. “No problem,” she says to the frantic mom on
the phone. “But, would it be ok if I take him to my house to wait for you?” Sure, she could be a psycho axe-murdering lady,
but I’ll take my chances and hope that she doesn’t call Child Protective
Services. She explains where she lives
(right next door to the church that her hubby pastors), and I rush to get him.
It’s not the first time I’ve forgotten to pick up my son. Poor kid; I’m sure he’s developing a major complex
– one that will require YEARS of therapy to resolve!
Anyway, I get to her house, and he’s hanging out in the front
yard, on the porch swing. He’s not
stressed out, and had a great time, both at the GNC and at her house. She’s very sweet – albeit a tad bit
introverted, so I’m certain I overwhelm her – and we chit chat for a
while. Needing to get home, I apologize
for about the hundredth time, and swear it will never happen again….
Yea; right.
Two weeks ago, my son politely reminded me in the morning, before school, that he had the GNC that day. So guess what?!! I was there on time (actually, a few minutes early!)
My neighbor’s kids haven’t been picked up yet, and I don’t see the mom,
so I try to call her to see if she wants me to bring them home. (I’d been thinking we should car pool anyway,
right?) At any rate, the number I have
for her is disconnected. Her son seems
disturbed to see me, and not her, so I promise that I will wait until she picks
him up before I drive off. Feeling very
accomplished and responsible – adult,
really! – I head home about 5 minutes later, when his mom shows up.
That brings us to last week.
My hubby and I both got off work early; one of our children had a
couple of grades that had slipped into the “caution” zone, and we felt that it was
very important that we take her to her Parent-Teacher conferences and meet with
her teachers. It was chaotic, because
the conferences are held in the gym of her school; all of the teachers sit at
tables, identified first by the subject they teach, then their last name. We had already met with a couple of her
teachers, but the teacher we most needed to meet with had (of course) the
longest line. As we’re heading to that
line, my hubby’s phone rings. It’s our
oldest daughter, saying something unintelligible to my hubby. Exasperated, he thrusts the phone at my head;
“I can’t understand what she’s saying!” As
I put the phone to my ear, all I hear is “Good News Club!” and I’m certain the
blood drained from my face.
Ooops – I did it again!
What I haven’t mentioned here is that my
cell phone battery died while I was at work.
I hadn’t bothered to charge it at home, and I didn’t have a charger at
my office. The only charger I had with
me was the lighter-charger for my car.
Therefore, my cell phone was not on my person, but in my vehicle. It’s rather hard to hear it ring from inside
the gym….
My hubby, who probably wants to get out of meeting with the math
teacher almost as much as he wants to win the lottery, insists on picking up
our little guy, but “where do I go?” is his question. As I’m trying to formulate directions in my
head, my growing panic demands that I go to my car, because I know she will be calling me. I just know
it! So I start barking orders at my hubby
to stand in the line he most wants to avoid (“No, you stay there because I have
to get my phone!”) so that I can go get my phone and rescue my “forgotten”
son.
As I turn on my headlights and navigate my car out of the
congested parking lot onto the empty streets of my town, I am grateful that a)
the roads are not nearly as busy as the school gym and parking lot, and b) that
I remembered to charge my phone and
turn it on! At about that exact second,
as if on cue, it rings. Before she could
even get more than her name out of her mouth, I prolifically apologize,
confessing my horror and embarrassment, all at the same time!
I have to say, she truly is the sweetest thing ever, because she
didn’t bat an eyelash about it, and almost more importantly, she didn’t laugh
out loud when I sheepishly proclaimed,
“It won’t happen again.”
My son, on the other hand, sums it up the best:
“I wasn’t really surprised, Mom.”
Ouch.
