Wednesday, July 9, 2014

Drivin' Miss Marty. Or, How I Lost 10 Years Of My Life Riding With My 18 Year Old Son

The other night, as we were finishing up dinner, Clark said that he needed to return some things to Hobby Lobby for Faith (his girlfriend).

Let that just sink in for a minute, because those are words I NEVER thought I'd EVER hear come out of my 18 year old son's mouth.

I resisted the urge to pop off a wise-crack.

But it was hard.

I love Hobby Lobby, I do. In fact, it's one of mine and Holly's favorite places to go. And we looooove to take Joshua with us.

Joshua has a love/not love relationship with Hobby Lobby. He doesn't really understand how Holly and I can spend an hour walking around the store, commenting on everything.

On the other hand, if he finds out that we went without him, he gets upset.

One of our running jokes is that Holly will say, "hey, Joshua...what do you want to do today?" And Joshua will say, "Iiiiiiiii don't know." And she will say, "I was thinking that you, me and MOM could go to Hobby Lobby for about 3 hours...and then we can grab a quick bite of lunch...and then we can go BACK to Hobby Lobby for 3 more hours."

And that's how Joshua dies.

Anyway, all of that is just a side note. I love Hobby Lobby.

So Clark asks if I want to ride out there with him. At this point, it is 7 p.m. I told him I would...but that I wanted a Pineapple Whip after! He said, "I figured as much!"

Clark drags his feet and we finally get away from the house at about 7:20. We get about half-way there and I start looking around his car. I say, "where is the stuff we are taking back?"  And he goes, "uh-ohhhh."

It's back at Faith's house...which is close to OUR house. (grrr...)

We turn around and head back toward home. We get to her house and he runs in, picks up her things and we head back the way we WERE going...toward Hobby Lobby.

But do you know what ELSE we had to do? We had to go by Faith's work, because while the stuff to be returned was at her house...the RECEIPT was in her car. At her work.

Arrrrrrgh.

And, hey...do you know what people don't like? When you come into their place of business 10 minutes before closing.

And do you know what we were doing? Going into a place of business 10 minutes before closing.

I HATE that.

Did I mention that Hobby Lobby closes at 8?

I didn't say anything, but Clark knew.

Oh...he KNEW.

And then he did something really uncharacteristic of him: he reached over and started patting my knee.

It's at this point that you need to know that Clark is the slowest driver KNOWN TO MAN.

Don't get me wrong. I am VERY thankful that I have never had to worry about my kids driving fast like maniacs. They were definitely NOT the normal teen drivers that we all hear/complain about. Joshua doesn't drive, of course, but Holly is a very careful driver. Logan doesn't really like to drive, but when he does, he drives slowly. Drives Morgan crazy. And then there's Clark. I seriously thought...last night...that I could get out and physically run my big rear-end to Hobby Lobby faster than he was driving.

I could just feel my blood pressure rising.

He did more patting.

I seriously lost 10 years of my life, and my head nearly popped off.

In the end, we returned the items with no problems. The manager lady was kind of terse...and when I tried to make small-talk with her, she said, "we're all tired, here."

I can respek dat.

We left as quickly as we could...

And then I got my Pineapple Whip.  :)

"Seek peace and pursue it..." Psalm 34:14

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