illustration courtesy Pixabay
by Kelli Bowen
I would like to start by saying nothing I am about to write about is a hardship. There are people who have real problems. I know this. I acknowledge this fact. Nothing I am about to complain about compares to some real hard, lonely, terrible issues. I’m just annoyed and going to whine about my first-world problems, possibly blowing them out of proportion for comedic value. Okay??? Let’s continue.
‘Twas the week before moving and all through the house, my children had theme days and I gave no effs about any of it. Miss A’s elementary school wanted a “house picture” where all the kids wore their “house shirt” that they had gotten the year before. Each house is a different color. If they can’t find or fit in their shirt, that’s okay! Just wear a shirt of the same color. Her house color is orange. Guess what color NEVER gets chosen when my children go shopping? Orange. I see the photo of the elementary, all organized by color, like a perfect little dayum rainbow and there’s Miss A with a big smile on her face: a purple dot in the middle of the orange stripe.
The buyer of our house wants an inspection, on Saturday so we need to go do something else. It’s prime packing and moving day, but it needs to happen so we are doing what we can before they arrive at 10 a.m. They show up at 9 a.m., so we shut the doors and leave. The inspector hands us an old paystub that was laying in the street…that’s odd. I get in our beater car and see the glovebox hanging open. I must have forgotten to lock the car and I parked it on the street last night! Someone tossed our dang car and took our car manual, Hubby’s engine scanner, and whatever other random documents may have been in our glovebox and of course our cameras weren’t on. Argh.
Fast forward a couple days, we return to the house to find it about 80 degrees because Mr. Inspector left our fireplace pilot flame burning all weekend. Awesome.
The buyer of our house wants the house professionally cleaned. Okay. I think that’s actually a great ask and I will probably ask for it going forward. I call the cleaning company and the ONLY day they can even get us in next week is Tuesday. Now we have to get our entire house cleaned out by Monday night instead of Friday. Super duper.
I go to get cash for graduation cards. We keep an open account at the bank I used to work at just because we like supporting local. We have a couple auto payments come out of it that we’ve had forever and use it as a little petty cash account. It’s negative. WHAT???? Our gas company has taken out ten times the regular payment and it has bounced our account $5. At first I’m thinking the dang inspector, then I remember the tossed glove box. Guess what? Fraud.
I go to the bank and fill out the paperwork for fraud with all my extra time I don’t have when I should be packing. Then the next day I go online to see if the account has been credited. Guess what? The bank closed my account. They didn’t open a new one. I asked where our hundreds of dollars went. “Oh we put it in your daughter’s account.” What in the actual…is that even legal?
Okay: last day of school is here. The girls and I are leaving for our west home as soon as school is over. Miss A has field day. I tell her I can come to one event: I have a lot of work to get done before we leave for the new house. She says she wants me to go to tug-of-war. It’s the first event of the day. Okay. I go to tug-of-war, it’s super quick. Miss A is thrilled I’m there. The second event is kickball. I thought, “I have a few minutes. I’ll watch a bit.” As I watch, Miss A is holding her face in the outfield, then she isn’t getting in line to kick, she’s in the dugout holding her face, miserable with a toothache.
What says start-to-summer-vacation?? A trip to the dentist for a molar pulled. After big alligator tears and a clamped-shut mouth after seeing the extraction tools, the very patient dentist was able to pop the tooth out with his finger, and Miss A was in shape by the 3-legged race. She even said, “It feels WAY better!”
After school we grabbed the dog, girls, and headed west. After a fun call to 911 about a motorist who was driving straight down the middle of both lanes for miles and getting to drive past a person having a medical event in the ditch along side the road, and two pit-stops, we made it to Medora in one piece…if you don’t count the tooth. Due to the bank debacle I didn’t have a chance to get small bills so it turns out the tooth fairy pays handsomely for dentist-extracted teeth on the western side of the state.
UFFDA! Let summer begin!
Kelli makes her home in Billings County with her husband, two daughters (11 and 8) and a dog. She works for North Dakota's #1 tourist destination by day and tries to be an alright mom, wife, friend, and writer by night.
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