Mommy says that we kept her very busy, the four of us, when we were little, and that whenever she got things accomplished on time, she felt it was an achievement. When she got things done early, she knew it had to be a miracle—or a significant missing detail. Usually, it was the latter.
One morning she was very pleased with herself. For some reason, she was very efficient. We were all awake, washed, dressed, fed, and standing in line for our various school buses with our lunch boxes in hand, and Mommy had more time than usual before she had to leave for her bus stop.
While our buses were picking us up, she quickly dressed. Mommy always dresses quickly. When the last bus departed, she had ten extra minutes to make her bus, so she strolled to the bus stop. (She usually ran up to the bus just as it was about to close its doors.)
When she got to the bus stop, she sat down on the bench very ladylike, as if she did this every day instead of rushing up out of breath and disheveled. The bus stop was located on a major highway, so there were always lots of people around. Some of the Mommy recognized because they rode the bus often.
This morning one of the women she recognized asked if she had not forgotten something. Mommy wondered what it was that she usually brought that she did not have with her that day. She checked. She had her purse, her briefcase, even her spare umbrella, since it rained often in that city.
"Well," she said to the lady, "I cannot imagine what it might be. I seem to have everything I usually have."
"What about your skirt?" asked the lady.
Mommy ran home, really fast. This time, she was out of breath going away from the bus stop, not coming up to it.
Conclusion: Credit cards are not the only things that one should not leave home without.
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This story is excerpted from a collection of vignettes that I helped Doah, my severely mentally challenged youngest son, to write and publish several years ago (copyright 2003). It was my attempt to help him understand literacy and the purpose of writing and reading.
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About Me
- Elizabeth Mahlou
- I am the mother of 4 birth children (plus 3 others who lived with us) and grandmother of 2, all of them exceptional children. Married for 42 years, I grew up in Maine, live in California, and work in many places in education, linguistics, and program management. In my spare time, I rescue and tame feral cats and have the scars to prove it. A long-time ignorantly blissful atheist converted by a theophanic experience to Catholicism, I am now a joyful catechist. Oh, I also authored a dozen books, two under my pen name of Mahlou (Blest Atheist and A Believer-in-Waiting's First Encounters with God).
Recommended Reading List
Because I am blog inept, I don't quite know how to get a reading list to stay at the end of the page and not disappear from sight. Therefore, I entered it as my first post. I suppose that is not all that bad because readers started commenting about the books, even suggesting additional readings. So, you can participate with others in my reading list by clicking here.I do post additional books as I read them and find them to be meaningful to me, and therefore, hopefully, meaningful to you. One advantage of all the plane traveling I do is that I acquire reading time that I might not otherwise take.
Oh my...now that sure did give me a laugh. Mental picture...Wow!
ReplyDeleteIt wasn't quite so funny when it happened! Doah's stories are all true!!
ReplyDelete