Landon gives the angel her final flight.
Despite temps in the ’80’s, Christmas has fully made its way to our house. We topped off Project Initiate Christmas this past weekend with a trip to the local Tree Lot to purchase our Christmas tree. You can go to actual tree farms here in Florida to cut your own tree, but a Christmas tree grown in Florida does not have the same appeal as one brought in from Oregon.
You understand.
Lee and I have celebrated twelve Christmases together and we’ve never had a tree fall over thanks to our amazing tree stand, so imagine our horror when we got home Saturday and realized our tree didn’t fit into the stand. I’ll make a long story very short:
Awesome neighbors lent us another stand.
We decorated our tree.
It fell over at 10:30 Saturday night.
Ornaments shattered.
Our angel broke.
I cried.
Apparently it was too heavy for our borrowed stand as well.
We tied it to the piano and the chair with twine where it stayed propped through our big party on Sunday.
So Sunday night, I headed to Home Depot to look for a sturdier stand to hold our wily tree. As I walked out of the house, I grabbed Lee’s keys thinking I’d take his car. Did I mention Lee got a new job? His new job necessitated the purchase of a new car and…well, his new car is pretty. I like driving it.
It doesn’t smell like french fries and make strange knocking noises when I hit 40 mph.
Alas, my car was parked behind his, so I grabbed my keys, jumped in the car and took off. I purchased the largest tree stand known to mankind made of solid steel. You’ll be pleased to know that should we ever want to get a 12 foot tree we have the stand to hold it up.
Merry Christmas!
After I paid for my tree stand, I walked back out to the parking lot and began looking for the car. The problem? I thought I was looking for Lee’s car. Somehow I totally and completely forgot I had driven my car to the store. Lee’s new car is so fancy that you just push a button to start and stop it – you just need to have the keys in the car with you.
As I wandered the parking lot, I couldn’t remember taking his keys out of the car with me so the obvious conclusion that I could come to was someone had stolen his car.
Obviously…
I stood in the parking lot and began to panic. My foolishness and forgetfulness had resulted in Lee’s car being stolen right out from under my nose. I wondered how on earth someone had figured out that I left the keys in the car. I wondered at what point I should call the police.
Just then, a Home Depot employee came up to me. “Can I help you?” he asked. I must have looked a little crazy, what with my heavy breathing and wide, panicked eyes and all.
“I…I can’t find my car,” I said. “I parked it right here and I don’t see it.”
The young man looked concerned himself and both of us turned in a circle, scanning the parking lot.
“What kind of car do you drive?” he asked.
That’s when I realized my mistake. How did I realize my mistake? You ask.
PEOPLE, I WAS STANDING RIGHT NEXT TO MY MINIVAN!
I saw the van and cleared my throat, trying to figure out how to not look completely crazy but I realized pretty quickly that there was very little I could do to mask the truth.
“Oh…ahem…um,” I turned to the concerned helper. “So, funny story…I was looking for the wrong car. This car right here is mine.” I point to the car that is literally within arm’s reach. “So, I’m all good.” I flashed him my best I-am-totally-normal-and-not-crazy-at-all-and-am-actually-a-fairly-intelligent-chick-who-happens-to-suffer-from-a-rare-bout-of-ditziness-now-and-then smile.
He smiled back. It was more of an I’m-totally-going-to-laugh-my-head-off-and-tell-the-entire-store-about-how-dumb-you-are-when-you-drive-away sort of smile.
So there you have it. The blonde strikes again. It doesn’t happen often but when it does, I make sure it’s good…
Am I the only one who’s ever done this?
You know what…don’t answer that.
I am married to a blonde, 31 years and counting so no explanation required. We have a tall ceiling so my blonde wants to fill the space and our old trusty gave out and the tree came down and also breaking multiple decorations. No sutiable stands at the stores so I wired it to the ceiling. It will not fall again in fact I may not be able to get it down at all. We think tht our small dog (Yorki mix) was near the tree when it fell because my daughter found her on her bed cowering and shivering. Merry Christmas!
I guess we have to all experience the fallen tree at least once in life, eh? 🙂
Merry Christmas back atcha…
No, you are NOT! I had the same exact thing happen at Wal-Mart one time. I was wandering all over the parking lot (panicking inside) and it was on Black Friday a couple of years ago, loaded with bags that I had been putting in the car. I even called my husband freaking out only to realize that I drove my van, too. I guess my brain was overloaded that morning from too many crowds and lack of sleep. I am so happy to hear I am not the only one this has happened to–my husband thought it was hysterical!
Yeah…Lee laughed pretty hard at me. He got an unrighteous amount of glee out of my embarassment. 🙂
SO funny, but know I am laughing WITH you! It seems that when we bought our silver HIghlander, so did everyone and their mother. I have lost count of the number of times I have tried to get in someone else’s car only to realize that mine was the next one over! 🙂
Oh well….it could be worse.
BTW…congrats on Lee’s new job!
Hahaha…good to know I’m not alone.
Thanks! 🙂
We have that same Silver highlander!! And I can’t tell you HOW many times I’ve stood behind someone else’s Highlander wondering WHY.THE.HECK. WONT. IT. UNLOCK???MY.KEYS.ARE.RIGHT.HEREEEEEE!!! Only to then realize that I’m parked the next row over…”Duh!” I say to myself EVERYTIME! “Check the license plate you dork!!” We finally FINALLY decided to apply a cute silver Gecko on the back window so I’d know it was MY car! So sad!!
I’ve done that a few times. But my favorite time was when I came out of Publix forgetting I had taken Kevin’s car and walked right up to a minivan clicking my remote and going, “Why won’t it open???” Then realized my mistake and started laughing at myself. turned around to take my cart back to the store (still chuckling at myself), dropped off said cart, walked back out to the lot up to the VERY SAME WRONG CAR still clicking remote and going, “Why won’t it open?….oh — wait….um….”
And guess why I had gone to the store in the first place? If you guessed “to buy a pregnancy test” you would be correct. At that point I decided no $10 test was necessary. I had my confirmation.
I hope you’re just blonde and not also pregnant. Unless “adoptive pregnant” counts. You could run with that, you know.
Oh for heavens sake…now you’ve given me something to worry about! 🙂
Kelli, Kelli, Kelli … This has happened to me only when I make multiple trips to Wal-Mart in one day. 8am – milk (so kids can have cereal), 11am sour cream (cuz the receipe calls for it and I ain’t got none), 5pm (despearate call from home ‘we need toilet paper’). 5:10 – WHERE THE HE…CK IS MY CAR? I know I parked right here! What in the world? Who would steal a piece of crap car? (Insert your “crazy lady lost my car look” here) and then … “OOOOH YEEEAAH … I parked here a couple of hours ago … I’m on the other side of the lot this time!” Conclusion: This is the curse of living so close to Wal-Mart!!! (And btw – red hair is ‘blond gone bad’ hair. Seriously. It’s the ONE thing I remember from my genetics class. tee hee hee.)
Hahaha! Vonita, that’s funny. And I had NO idea about the genetic properties of red hair and blonde hair. Probably because I never took genetics. I avoided Science and Math like the plague. The only C I got in college was in my science class. I took Earthquakes and Other Natural Disasters because it was supposed to be the easiest science class offered. In fact, it earned the nickname “Rocks for Jocks.”
And I got a C.
True story….
I did not know that you are a blonde jock.
Let’s use the term “jock” loosely, m’kay?
At least you didn’t steal someone else’s car like someone we both know 😉
HAHAHA! So very, very true. 🙂