34
Three years ago, on a hot July day, Maggie and I sat in the car at a mini-storage unit and watched all our possessions being unloaded from a big semi truck into a closet. The moving company had charged us twice their estimate, delayed our delivery for almost a week because of mechanical problems (they had to use the runaway truck ramp!), and then bribed me out of $100. I was happy to finally have our stuff, but it was not really a great day. When it was finally time to drive away from it all, I packed Maggie's toys up and realized we had lost a piece of a game. The game is Rush Hour, a logic puzzle kind of game that consists of moving little plastic vehicles around a parking lot to get one specific car out of the maze. There are 4 big trucks and 12 small cars. But when we left the storage unit, we had only 11; the black car was gone.
And it has stayed gone for 3 years.
3 years, 1 month, and 13 days.
Until yesterday when it miraculously appeared in the back of our car. I had given up hope long long ago that it would ever resurface. I had not thought about its disappearance for many many moons. But it has returned!
Which is why, despite the fact that I was digging around in the back of the car for the spare tire after I got a flat, despite the fact that Tessa's diaper had leaked (in a bad way) that morning and I had to clean the house before the drywall guy came and made a new mess, despite the fact that we're babysitting a dog that pulls in the opposite direction from Eliza so on our walk I was nearly racked, despite Tessa throwing a toy train at a little boy's head in the library and then throwing a fit at having to leave, despite everything -- yesterday was the best day of my life.
35
36
37
38