The Drive Home.
February 5, 2011 § Leave a Comment
Life has a way of reminding you just how primal and simple you are. And it’s not very often that you can see this contrite slap in the face as a good thing. On Friday night it was just my lucky night. All the stars were aligned for such a time as this and the planets were in order.
It all started with a beautiful day down in Costa Mesa, my previous home city. I set up a sweet deal with my tattoo artist: ink for kid sitting. I’ll take it. Best deal I ever made. So I drove down the hill around ten am, taking my leisurely time in I-5 traffic. I’d brought our snacks and drinks and good tunes (the Unreleased Noise Ratchet album and cello rock by Oak & Gorski) and fun things to do when we got there.
I arrived after a quick and unsuccessful stop at Seed People’s Market. I love that store. They just didn’t have what I needed. Oh well. The day began with me making some tea for the girls (they’re 1/2 British like me) and putting together a tasty lunch. From there, we spent the afternoon enjoying the outdoors, the ladies road their bikes while I trotted behind pushing Audrey. We climbed trees at the park, played tag, searched for pine cones, pretending the very fat and short wall near the playground was a tight rope…all good fun.
As the sun began setting, we travelled home in the cool dusk air. After parking the bikes and saying hello to the dogs, I started dinner: spaghetti bolagnese, vegan style. Mom came home and we shared a fun meal, complete with Frank Sinatra on Pandora and an amazing puppet show. When nine o’clock rolled around, I dressed Audrey in her feety pajamas, loaded all our gear back in the car, and began the trek home in the Friday night traffic.
As I drove up the 405, Audrey started to fuss, throwing out her paci and performing her best nighttime serenade to me. I finally decided to pull off the freeway and into a Chevron gas station to search for the missing pacifier. As I parked, I realized how much I had to urinate! More than I can ever remember even when I was pregnant. I ran inside noting the three poorly hand-written signs before entering the automatic door declaring, “No Water!” “No Coffee!” “No Coke!”
“Uh oh!” I thought and preceded towards the bathrooms. Out Of Order. Figures. Being on the verge of pissing my pants, I ran to the attendant baby on hip and said,
“Where’s the nearest bathroom? I’m going to pee my pants!”
She looked at me, oggled and cooed at Audrey and replied with a point of her index finger across the street, “At McDonalds, of course!”
“I’ll never make it!” I thought, but said, “thank you,” and turned on my heal and ran. I tossed Audrey in the car, hopped into the backseat beside her and did a quick brainstorm session then and there: DIAPERS! I reached into the diaper bag and grabbed an emergency disposable diaper that I’d brought with me for the day. Only two left. Only TWO left. I hope one is enough.
So I squatted on the bag seat and relieved myself. Sigh. A sigh of relief. Oh crap! I had filled the diaper. I stopped the flow. Yay for Kegel muscles. And reached in the front seat to grab the last diaper I had in the whole car. Relief. But it’s almost full! Oops. Too late. I filled the diaper and then some. I got a bit on my pink undies and blue jeggings. Oh well.
Audrey climbed out of her seat, got onto my lap, and lifted my shirt up. She ate until her heart was content and she had fallen asleep whilst I sat on my wet bum. I placed her back in her carseat gingerly and buckled her in. Too embarrassed to get out of my car, lest someone spot the spot on my bum, I crawled through to the drivers seat and drove away. Spending the remaining thirty miles wet and sitting atop my windshield shade as to not stink up my seats any more than they already are.
Lesson learned. Heck, I peed right before I left like mama always said. It musta been that water running straight through me. No regrets though, no regrets. I did actually call my mom after it happened. She laughed and laughed and said, “That was a quick-thinking logical reaction, I’m so glad you had Audrey and therefore diapers in your car or you really would’ve peed your pants good.”
She’s right. The gods were on my side that night. But let’s hope I won’t need the extra 7 diapers I’ll now be keeping in the car. At least for a while.
