Mother of the Year

There I sat on the hard plastic chairs in the waiting room of Quest Diagnostics waiting to begin my three-hour glucose tolerance test.  I sat sandwiched between the Monster and Middle Monkey, both fully engrossed for the moment in their Nintendo DS, only one wearing shoes. 

Upon realizing that Monster-Monkey was shoeless, I was already ten minutes late for my appointment and there just wasn't time to turn around and get his shoes. 

A perfect storm of events in days of late has found my family of five limited to one car, one debit card, one cell phone, and one very befuddled mother.

On the Friday morning before we left for vacation I received a frantic phone call from the Monkey Maker to report that he had just been hit by a deer head on.  Thankfully he was unscathed but the same could not be said for the car or the deer for that matter.

The harrowing deer hitting experience only made us more excited and thankful to be going away to the peace and serenity of the Outer Banks of North Carolina, but more about that later.

After seven fantastic days of sand, surf, and family dys"fun"ction, we were equally happy to be headed back to home sweet home.

We eagerly packed the minivan and prepared for the six hours of driving that lay ahead.  We bid a fond farewell to the beach and off we headed, straight into a traffic nightmare from hell.

Now I realize that I should be more concerned about the victims of the accident that caused the four hour back up on Route 64 through Virginia last Friday but unfortunately the ginormous baby that I am carrying sat on my sympathy bone and made me a huge bitch.

At any rate somewhere in hour eight of our "shoulda been six but instead was ten hour" drive home my family stopped at a Taco Bell for some "sustenance." Upon stopping, I made a mad dash to the bathroom with Mini-Monkey.  The Monkey-Maker took the other Monkeys and procured for us a few "Party Packs" of tacos to-go and we piled back into the van to hit the road again.

Many hours later, long after we were home and unpacking I realized that I seemed to be missing my purse. 

Oh, f*ck.

Suddenly I had a very vivid memory of placing said purse on top of the changing station in the Taco Bell bathroom but I had NO such memory of taking it down when I left. 

Oh my God.  I did a quick mental rundown of the contents of my purse at the time of the pit stop. 

Oh. My. God. 

My iPod.  My Flip camera.  My wallet.  The Monkey-Makers wallet.  All of our medications.

My camera.  My pictures.  All of my beach photos.  I started to cry.

In the end, my purse was found by a Taco Bell employee and safely tucked away in a security box in the office. I was so grateful that my pictures were safe (er, I mean, the wallets....) that I didn't even mind the two hour return trip.

The Monkey-Maker, being a responsible and organized individual was deeply troubled that his wallet was being help captive in a Taco Bell in Maryland, but truthfully the contents of my wallet were the least of my concern. 

You see, I had misplaced my debit card a few weeks earlier and my drivers license was expired.  My social security card, which I know you are not supposed to keep in your wallet, was only there because I have been meaning to switch the card into my married name.  I guess I got a little busy during the seven years since our wedding...

Before we could travel south to retrieve my purse, I had to first take Middle Monkey to visit the doctor so that he could receive some treatment for the ear infection he seemed to have developed while on vacation. He very patiently allowed the doctor to poke and prod him, finally determining that yes, in fact he had an ear infection and drops would be needed.  She wrote us a prescription and we were on our way.

The trip for the purse was relatively uneventful save for the shuddering and bucking of our mini-van as the transmission in our one remaining vehicle threatened to drop.  So before heading, at last, to our homestead we hit the pharmacy to grab the ear drops. 

"Okay," said the sweet pharmacist assistant, "that will be $102.78." 

"What?!?!?" I nearly fainted. 

"Well," she explained patiently, "The doctor wanted to give you drops that you would only need to administer twice-a-day.  There are other less expensive options but they need to be given four or five times-per-day."

"Umm, thanks but I'll take the cheap drops and just kneel on the kid while I 'administer' the meds." 

I laughed but I don't think either of us thought I was joking. 

Several phone calls and 25 minutes later, I left Rite Aid with a $16 prescription for generic ear drops and minus one cell phone.

Turns out, the Middle Monkey is NOT a fan of ear drops.  I found this out when I had to actually "kneel" on him to put the drops in his infected ear.  His response to a 700lb. pregnant woman kneeling on him was to scream until he burst tiny capillaries all over his face.  Awesome.

Anywho....where was I? 

Oh!   Right.  There I am sitting waiting to drink luke-warm lemon-lime sugar vomit.  I have no phone, no debit card, no car, flanked by Shoeless Joe and Splotchy McSplotcherson.

Like I said, "Mother of the Year."