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Special Treat ??“ Dianna Doles Petry

Dec 7, 2005

Another Day in the Life of a Mother and Daughter 

Dianna Doles Petry

The morning started off well. I got up on time to a very pleasant temperature and both of my boys were laughing and looking forward to the day ahead of them at school. Chris, the oldest, had started my coffee pot and Kyle had gone out to start the Jeep so it could warm up before we were ready to leave. Normally, mornings like this one lead to a peaceful day with many accomplishments and few crisis's.

I made the short trip to take the boys to school and pick up one of the little girls I watch for a few minutes each morning until it's time for them to head out to school. I was pouring milk onto a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios for her when someone beat on my door hard enough to knock the fall scarecrow off and send him tumbling onto the front porch. Nicole looked up at me with her beautiful brown eyes and then we both looked at the door.

There stood one of my neighbors holding the hand of his four-year-old son. They were already halfway through the doorway when the man blurted out, "I need you to take us to the emergency room." I could see that the little boy had been crying so I assumed that he was ill.

"Sure," I answered without thought, "Just give me a minute to get someone to sit with my mother since I can't leave her alone." I looked towards Nicole and added, "I'll just take you and drop you at school myself this morning."

Nicole smiled and as I was making the call to another neighbor for help with my mother, I heard her ask the man, "Is Kenny sick with that flu bug that nobody wants?"

I couldn't help but notice that the man kept touching the outside of his nose and sort of half wiggling his face to one side. I tried not to stare but it was one of those things that just draws your attention and keeps it. Finally, he answered Nicole by saying, "No, we got erasers stuck up our noses and we can't get 'em out."

As I hung up the telephone and started putting on my shoes to make the trip to town, I felt the need to make a comment on what he had just said. "She's just worried about Kenny, she didn't mean to be nosy."

"Huh?" he said, still wiggling his face as much as he could. "I just told her the truth, we got erasers stuck up our noses. Look here, see for yourself." Now he moved closer to me and pulled his nose to one side with one hand and pulled at the left nostril with the other hand. I turned away immediately and I guess he felt the need to explain.

"Kenny was a writin' and I guess he got the idea to stick the end of that pencil up into his nose. It made his sister laugh so he wiggled it around and I reckon the eraser went and broke off. I was tryin' to get 'im to breathe outta one side and blow it out but he didn't understand. So, since showin' somebody is always better than just tellin' 'em, I broke off an eraser and put it up my nose to show him how to blow it out. Well, I wasn't counting on it making me wanna sniff and the dang thing went up there too far and now I can't get it out. Here we are, two good men with eraser noses, ain't that right, Kenny?"

I just couldn't help it, I swear that I couldn't! I started to laugh and tried to hold it back but there was no way to do that. Nicole started laughing because I was laughing and then even Kenny started to laugh. In fact, he laughed so hard that he started to get a runny nose and there came the little eraser just flopping right out onto the floor! That made us all laugh even harder, well, all except for his father who was still wiggling his face and trying to dislodge his own eraser.

I made the trip to take him to the ER after I watched his son back home to his mother. I dropped Nicole off at school and returned home myself to start the day.

The neighbor that I had called to come over and sit with my mother is always great about helping out in the kitchen or tossing in a load of laundry or just whatever needs to be done. This morning she was doing a few dishes that the boys had dirtied having breakfast and tidying up my dining room. In the short time that I had been gone, she had already swept the kitchen and feed Sable and Skye. When I came in she handed me a cup of coffee and we sat down so that I could explain to her why I had needed her so early in the morning. We talked, laughed and made guesses about the Christmas decorating in the neighborhood before she left around noon.

When she left, I decided that I was going to finish the kitchen clean up by taking out the rubbish and mopping the floor while no one was on it. First, I needed to prepare my mother some lunch. I opened a can of tomato soup and put it on the stove to simmer and set the tub of "Country Crock Spread" out to make her toast. Lately, she wants toast with everything that she eats and that is better than the peanut butter she craved a few weeks ago. I'm telling you, I just could not bear to touch my spaghetti after she put a whopping big tablespoon of peanut butter on top of hers.

I thought I would go ahead and take the rubbish out first while the soup was heating. I pulled at the bag and after a few tugs, it came out and I pulled it over to sit it down to tie the top of the bag off. Just about the time I had the bag almost lined up exactly with my left foot, the bottom of it broke. Out of the bag and onto my foot and the floor came last night's mashed potatoes, corn and even some gravy. I guess my neighbor had cleaned out my refrigerator for me and didn't use a scrap bag.

My once light brown suede shoes now looked more like hiking boots that had survived a major feat on "Fear Factor". I reached over to grab a roll of paper towels to clean up the mess, trying hard not to take any steps to make a bigger mess. As I stretched to reach the paper towels my feet began to slide in the mashed potatoes and gravy and I grabbed for the counter to break my fall.

I grabbed the tub of butter instead as I grabbed for the counter and it came flying past me as I continued still to try and avoid the fall. As I felt my legs give away, I saw the butter container hit the floor just behind me. The butter came out of the bowl like a glob of Jell-O and the container went rolling through the kitchen. My dogs had started to bark as though they were being attacked because all of the commotion had startled them and I found my backside hitting the cool, soft surface of the butter as I finally landed on the floor.

There I was lying in the kitchen floor with mashed potatoes, gravy and corn all over my shoes and butter all over my ass..ets! Talk about hair with frosted tips, my hair is very long and the ends of it had been covered in butter along with everything else. I started to laugh at myself and from the living room I heard my mother call out, "You about got my lunch ready in there yet?"

How could I take anything too seriously after a day like that?

?©Dianna Doles Petry

11/09/2005

Dianna59@charter.net