Would you like a sticker for that?

If you are just tuning in, this is the second way that I recently thought, 'hmm . . . I wonder what it would be like to be Coach.'

#2.  The night got a bit more confusing (as in, the night when I was trying to vote after catching Curly's basketball game and racing to the bank - and hoping that I could have time to woof down a meal - that Coach was grilling - and cart Curly to a private Irish dancing lesson), because I realized as I drove in the wrong direction from the high school to my voting spot, that we would have two kids done with basketball at the high school at any minute.  I called Coach.  'I am cooking dinner.  I can't go pick them up,' he told me.

Fair enough.  They could wait.  Better them, than me.  That is my chauffeuring motto - so long as coaches don't have to stand around and wait.  That I try desperately to avoid.

Imagine how many stickers I could collect
 if they handed them out for other exciting
 adventures each day like:  making dinner
 and timing it not to interfere with
 chauffeuring duties, 
remembering to pick up kids,
 making time for the bank
 separate from my husband's visit, cheering
for a 5th grader in her 7th grade b-ball game

Mini forgot her phone that morning, and Tank's phone is broken - although he has managed to send and receive the occasional text.  We question whether or not he is just jones-ing for a new phone.  Can't blame him, since his phone is INCREDIBLY cheap, but he has caused more than his share of frustrations lately - laundry hijackings, DMV nightmares, corneal abrasions, etc.  Have I not written about those yet?  Oh, hold on to your hat peeps.  I will soon share the Tank dairies with you.

I digress, b-ball coaches don't always end basketball practice/tryouts when they say they are going to.  I had no idea how I would communicate with Mini and Tank.  I was pressed for time, because I still had to vote, get them at the high school, double-back to get home, eat dinner, and drive Curly to her money pit private lesson.

Getting back to my point - how I wish I could be Coach:  I cook dinner most nights.  I have NEVER been eligible to use the 'I'm-cooking-dinner-I-can't-pick-so-and-so-up' card.  Really, this doesn't count and I know it.  There is some kind of state mandate that my dinners must all be in the oven well in advance, so there isn't a chauffeuring conflict.  Coach grills, and that damn grill can be downright unforgiving.  This is why I stick to the stove/oven/crock pot variety dinners.  I never grill.

Let me just add though - I don't usually have someone to differ to for pick up, because most of the time I am flying solo.  Cussing a blue streak, but flying solo none the less.

Just as I was pulling into the parking lot where I needed to vote, Tank called me on a borrowed phone.  'We are done.  Come get us.'  I am voting now, but the lot doesn't look full, so it should be fast.  Like 15 minutes, I explained.  Excessive amount of grumbling.

I voted quicker than you can say, I-am-elated-that-I-don't-have-to-hear-any-more-horrible-political-ads.  On my way to the high school, I got a text from Coach.  I asked Ms. Bluetooth Voice to read it to me.  It sounded like:  'Eee walked home.  In shorts.'  Now I was super confused.  There was no way that Tank could have physically walked home from the high school in the time it took me to vote.  What on earth was Coach texting me about?

Ms. Bluetooth Voice pronounced the 'B' as 'Eee'.  'B' in truth is the first initial of Reggie's real name and the initial that Coach and I text to avoid typing Reg's entire name.  I thought Ms. Bluetooth was trying to say 'He' but dropping the 'H'.  Kind of like when I call someone with the last name Jensen and the phone turns the 'J' into a 'Y':  Yensen.  Any-who, the text was telling me that 'B' aka 'Reg' had just walked home in shorts (it was freezing out) the 5 blocks from our junior high.  Reg was supposed to borrow a cell phone to let us know when he was back at our junior high and ready to be picked up.

What kind of mother am I if I admit that I had completely forgotten about Reggie needing to be picked up from the junior high after he watched the away game bench-warmer scrimmage?  I guess I am the kind of mother that occasionally wishes that I was my kids' father.