Swept from the Corners of my mind….
I thought it was an ordinary day. Work went as busily as usual. I had an issue with the Virtual Reality headsets that had fought me every virtual inch of the way, but I eventually won the battle. Things calmed down and I was looking forward to a meeting with my writing group just north of town in the early evening. Around 3 the phone rang; it was my son-in-law. Would I be able to get my grandson after school? That gave me 15 minutes to clock out and get to his school, but I made it.
Once I gathered up my happy camper I checked his schedule—we had two and a half hours to kill time before his Jiu Jitsu class. No problem. We could go back to my office, I could get a bit more work done, and he could play. I started to drive and he started to chatter.
I adore my grandson, but some days I have a hard time keeping up to his topics, especially when I’m concentrating on driving. He can be somewhat distracting. But I pulled into the now half-empty parking lot, made sure I had my office keys, and chivvied him out of the car, still trying to follow his conversation. By this time, he had decided he wanted to try one of the VR headsets. I was none too impressed due to the morning’s struggles but figured one eight-year-old and one headset shouldn’t be that much of a problem. I was wrong. Batteries died unexpectedly. Connections refused to connect. The boy’s chatter increased in speed as I struggled with headset after headset trying to find one that would connect properly. Finally, I was able to open one game, and he happily played.
I glanced at the clock to see that we had 40 minutes before his class. I felt I should get some calories into him before I met his mom up at the gym, so we packed up and headed back to the parking lot. As I locked up the office and took two steps towards the outer door it struck me… I had locked my keys in the car.
I have 2 vehicles. One is a fun little jeep that I know how to break into, and which has no car seats. The other is an old Aztek that I’ve had for over ten years. I have one key for the Aztek. The others were lost long ago. The Aztek does have a car seat. It is also covered in bright, colourful stickers.
I immediately called CAA, then his mom, and we went out to wait by the car. There were only 2 other cars in the lot, which is in full view of the street. CAA called and they would be there right away. I was relieved when I saw a tow truck coming down the street and turning on the access road. The entrance to the lot was just out of sight, so I waited eagerly. No truck.
A few minutes later my daughter arrives and gets her boy. While we are chatting the CAA driver phones to tell me that he can’t find my car. “I’m right here,” I said. “I saw you drive in.” He tells me, twice, that there was no Pontiac Aztek in this parking lot and that he had checked all the lots. He saw two white cars and a black truck in mine, but no Aztek. ” How about you just take a closer look at the white vehicles in the staff lot,” I suggested. “I’m standing right beside the one that says Aztek on it.” In a few minutes he rounded the corner and parked beside me.
He worked diligently to break in and finally accomplishes it, not even tripping over his oversize, unlaced, worn out work boots as he circled the car. In less time that it felt he had me back in the car and I was ready to go to my meeting.
I was dragging by that time but still felt up to meeting with the talented writers. First, though, I had to go to the gym and drop off the little guy’s homework, which had been locked in the car. No problem. I even had time to stop for gas and asked for washing fluid and an oil check. Bad choice. The hood was hard to open and I wasn’t much help. Then gas gal got ready to put the oil in and I walked away with it, putting it into the back of the car. I retrieved it, then helped her with the hood and ended up shutting it wrong. This made it much harder to open the second time.
Driving to the south end of the city to drop off the homework I decided to miss the meeting. My get up and go had gotten up and went. Instead, I stopped at Canadian Tire and got spare keys and some magnetic boxes. There are now several keys available if I ever do this again. The day ended with going home, feeding pets, and collapsing, just the end of another “ordinary” day.
Cathy Bendle finds humor in the quirks of everyday life, from training teachers to dodging housework. When not writing, she’s either laughing at her pets, frantically Googling for her work assignments, or playing on her iPad.
