It Pays to Pay Attention

Ugh. Bay’s crud has finally attacked my immune system and won. I used to put up a fierce fight when I would feel the first signs of illness coming on – lots of rest, running it out, extreme mental denial of any illness, etc. However, because my two year old now hangs out with other two year olds at preschool a few half days a week, she comes home with every illness imaginable. Because despite her classroom being very clean and constant hand washing throughout her day, preschool = cesspool. Therefore I no longer fight it. At the first sign of a tickle in my throat, I down my usual cocktail of vitamin C, Mucinex D, Zyrtec and sometimes and Advil for good measure.

After a rough night’s sleep due to a scratch throat and PW’s scratchy throat and Baylor’s scratchy throat, I was a little more sleep deprived than usual. I realized my normal morning routine was a little scattered and I couldn’t quite put my finger on what came next on the priority list. Despite my general fuzziness, we made it out the door on time.

I dropped B off and stood for a few minutes watching her interact with her buddies – they were all hanging on the playground fence laughing and waving at a car parked with two dogs inside. It always cracks me up to see what she’s doing when she doesn’t know I’m looking.

I walked to the car making mental notes to remember to bring money at pick up for the pancake breakfast, to make a note about what I had signed up to bring for the Valentine’s party and which errand I needed to get done first. I pushed the button on my keys, heard the tell tale “beep beep” of an unlocked car, opened the door and started to swing into my seat when I realized something was weird…why are my seats tan and not gray? At that point a voice from the back door said “good morning”. I looked back to see a mom pulling her kiddo out of his car seat on the passenger side. It was then I realized I had just attempted to get into someone else’s car.

Thank God the mom clearly had a sense of humor and or empathy that she didn’t scream but rather just laughed and said “same car??”. And thank goodness I had at least attempted to get into a car that was exactly like my own (there are 4 white SUVs of the same make and model at B’s school – I counted) and not one that was completely different. I proceeded to get into the correct car and drive straight to Starbucks for an extra shot of caffeine to hopefully wake myself up a little.

While retelling the story to my friend and neighbor, a mom of three, she informed me that she too had done the same thing a few years ago. So at least I’m not alone in my airheadedness. Which means I’ll have friends when PW finally checks me into the funny farm.

4 thoughts on “It Pays to Pay Attention

  1. Kristin Moon Thomson (@OnePrettyPlace) says:

    Laughing out loud at work. I’ve almost done that but I don’t have a kid to blame it on and I wasn’t sick.

    I wondered why my key wasn’t working in the lock of my car door. After a few MINUTES of jiggling the key around in the lock, the door finally opened, and boy was I surprised when the inside of my car had been apparently used as a trash dump! It was then that I realized that my key had opened the door of another car of the same make and model, but it was CLEARLY not my car. I locked the door and quickly slunk away.

  2. sarahselzer says:

    Art did that, too — got into “my” car in a parking lot and couldn’t understand why I was driving an automatic not a stick…

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