A Very Crazy Day (and a very long post)

About three weeks ago I had one of those days that you look back on and wonder, what in world just happened? It all started when we realized that we hadn't seen Susu around that morning. Jose was heading out for a kayaking trip and I was getting ready to take the boys to church so I asked him to check the road just in case. Sure enough, she'd made it out the gate and onto the road in front of our house. Being hard of hearing and not so keen on vision either she probably never saw it coming. I got the boys out finally and we headed off to church. Sebastian decided that it was too noisy in the nursery and he wanted to stay with me. Okay, fine, now we just have to get Noah to his room. Not gonna happen. As soon as I started signing him in he began to whimper. Since it was snack time and he was all too eager to get in on the goldfish and juice, I thought it might just work. It didn't. So we took our goldfish (chucked the juice) and headed through the sanctuary to the balcony, the very top of the balcony. We lasted there about five minutes, until the goldfish ran out and then Noah was ready to run the steps. My boys have never been able to manage quietly in church. So we left. I thought we might as well squeeze in a trip to the market since we were out and I desperately wanted some fresh veggies and fruit. While we were there the boys found a few box fans which vendors had set up to keep cool. Sebastian loves talking into the box fan and listening to how it changes his voice. These fans didn't have those little plastic feet that help stabilize them. So you can probably guess where this is going. It took about 30 seconds for Noah to touch one of the fans. That's all it took for the thing to fall over. After the loud bang there was a loud knocking noise. I picked it up and shut it off, just in time for the owner to stomp over and say, "Well, you just bought a fan." Hey, thanks for giving me the chance to apologize and offer to pay for it. I asked her how much it cost, she didn't reply so said, "$15?" And her answer was, "That will cover it." I asked if it was more or less and she said it was about $13.50. I dragged the boys around to the front of her stand and tried to keep them from causing any more damage while I wrote her a check. She pretty much ignored me and talked to some friends right next to me. I realize that I let my boys play with something that wasn't ours to touch. I was more than willing to make amends. But, man, was she nasty about it all. It was really embarrassing and she managed to make it as unpleasant as possible. When I told Jose he asked if it was a certain person and said that she'd been rude to him before.

I should have cut my losses and just left then, but I came for veggies so we headed over to a few stands, got some veggies and fruit, the whole while the boys were very active and not obeying very well. After they played in the kids area for a bit, I saw some cucumbers and thought I'd push my luck. So I got my check all written up except for the payee and amount (not smart, I know) and dragged the boys and our produce over. After telling Sebastian multiple times that we weren't going to pay $5 for a pint of blackberries while trying to hold on to a flailing Noah I went to pay for my two cucumbers. The only problem was that I couldn't find my check. I ran around looking for it, snapping at, begging my boys to just wait and stop screaming. (It was not a pretty sight). Finally I just wrote a new check and asked the vendor to tear up the other blank check if he saw it. As we were headed out a woman got my attention and directed me to someone who had found the check and torn it up. What relief! We headed back out and then I realized that I'd left my bag of peaches so back in, grab the peaches and we finally got out of there. I think there were a few other minor happenings but they pale in comparison to the craziness of that morning.

Oddly enough it didn't really phase me, well except for that lady with the fan. It was another day before my face didn't burn when I thought that incident.