Driving? What Driving?

Yesterday, while waiting for Charlie to finish up playing six hours of tennis in Lakeville, I got a call from Zach, who was playing tennis in Fridley. These two suburbs of Minneapolis are approximately 40 minutes away from each other.

"Hi mom. I'm not feeling the greatest. Could you just pick me up now, because I'm not going to stay for the second practice."

"Well, I'm still waiting for your brother to finish his clinic in Lakeville, so I won't be there for at least an hour. Maybe you could buy yourself some dinner and hang out with your friends while you wait for me." This seemed like a completely reasonable suggestion.

"Oh. Well, okay then. You can't get here for an hour? I guess I'll just have to hang out here. What are we doing for dinner?" Note to self: stop speaking German on cell phone.

"Ich werde Ihnen Futtermittel später, und ich rufe dich an, wenn ich auf meinem Weg."

"What? I can't hear you." I think that he sometimes has a tendency to hold the phone on his neck.

"I said, I'll feed you later, and I'll call you when I'm on my way."

When I was about 20 minutes away, I called to let him know that I was, in fact, in the car and headed in his direction and would be there soon, so please start getting ready. Providing your kid with a cell phone really does make things more convenient. Now I won't have to wait in the car when I get there!

As I approached the last stoplight before the club parking lot, I called him again to let him know I was there. His response was: "Oh. Okay. I guess I'll get my pants on and switch my shoes then."

At this point, after enduring two weeks of running kids to extra practices and holiday concerts, keeping Zoe entertained throughout a six hour tennis clinic (yes, I got a pedicure), and suddenly facing a 7:00 dinner dilemma, it didn't surprise me one bit that I had to sit in the parking lot for a couple extra minutes, waiting for someone that wanted a ride an hour ago to figure out that he should put his pants on.

We decided to stop somewhere for dinner on the way home, and while we were inhaling an obscene amount of carbs at Noodles & Co. and I was slamming a Summit EPA, Doug called to see when we would be home. He must have detected the impatience and general bitchiness of my mood (maybe it was because I said something like "Driving around through this fucking day has really sucked ass."), because when I got home he had a martini shaker, a bottle of Ketel One, and my favorite glass waiting for me on the counter. That's when I realized that my time-off from running kids around had officially started. So 'tis the season, ho ho ho, shake shake shake, cheers all around, and happy holidays to me!