Sound the Alarm

I lost my keys. I take pride in the fact that I don’t lose anything…not my wallet, not my jacket, not my hair ties, not my sunglasses, not my mind and certainly not my keys.

I need to get to work and can’t put my hands on my keys. Ugh! Abraham “misplaces” many things frequently, especially his keys, but luckily, I can usually find them for him. Of course, as I find his stuff for him, I heckle and ask where he left them while bragging how I never misplace anything. As a result, today he stands ready to arm our alarm with a smirk on his face asking if I’m ready yet. I'm frantic. A crazed loon looking in the same places, over and over again...coming up empty handed.

I fling the door open to retrace my steps from when I pulled in from work the night before. Maybe I left them in the mailbox as I gathered mail? I’m starting to lose my mind and this worries me as I never lose anything and in 1 morning I'm going to lose my keys and my mind!?!? Yikes.

But hold on....as the door flies open......I hear a jingle. It is my keys. They are hanging in the doorknob. I left them in the door. That’s right, all night my car and house keys hung in our door. I look up at Abraham, who is stifling a laugh and simply says, “see, you didn’t lose your keys, they were right where you left them.”

Touche.

Arctic Adventure

Recently, I had dinner with my nieces, nephew, and sister-in-law. I was complaining how cold it had become when Jess reminded me that it wasn’t “nearly as cold as our Artic Adventure” which reminded me of our fun trip…

As you may have read in previous blog posts, my sister-in-law and I took my nieces, Ella and Jess, to Sea World in Florida a few months ago. On our first day at the park, it poured rain. There was still a lot to see so we bought slickers and headed out anyway. It was nice because there were no lines anywhere and few people crazy enough to trudge through ankle deep puddles on a random Thursday but there we were. By mid afternoon, we needed to escape the downpour so we headed over to the Arctic Adventure exhibit.

Little Jess was just the right height to get onto the “helicopter” ride that would take us to the polar bears and ice hut. We explained the ride, and buckled in. The “pilot” told us to keep our items on our laps as it may be a bumpy ride. Jess commented, “I like keeping my backpack on my lap, better than when we flew in the plane down to Florida. This way, if I want to color on the trip, it is right here.” I started to think that maybe Jess didn’t understand the concept of this “helicopter” ride. I looked over at Ella who heard Jess’s comment, and being older and wiser, Ella shrugged her shoulders and rolled her eyes. The “helicopter” jolted us in our seats, tossed and turned. Jess whispered, “Is this bumpiness normal?” I explained that it was. “Oh good,” she says, “it is kind of fun.” People around us just smiled.

Then images of the frozen tundra started whirling by us on large screens and cool air swirled at our feet. Jess started to look around frantically. She questioned, “Do you think we will see Santa? I mean, I know he is really busy making toys but it would be neat to at least see him and his house.” Seriously, you can’t make this stuff up. To stinking cute.

Suddenly, the “helicopter” lands and Jess declares, “humph, I thought the trip to the North Pole would be longer than our trip to Florida. Who knew Santa lived so close?” People chucked and so did big sister Ella who whispered in my ear, “she doesn’t get that it’s not real but that’s ok.” Well bat-ear-Jess heard Ella declare the ride fake just as we stepped into the exhibit. Jess touched an iceberg and pointed at a large, very real polar bear, and argued, “oh yea, this is ice and that’s a polar bear. It could eat your head. That is for real?!?!”

No arguing with that logic.

Golden Boy

In an effort to shield my big brother, who is quite possibly one of the greatest men I know, I have not written too much about him but this story has to be told. Those if you who know our family, will not find any of this as out of the ordinary but I think it sums up our crew.

For as long as I can remember, every Easter, my parents would pack up my brother and I and we would spend the week in some tropical paradise. Our little family of four would eat together, swim together, share books on the beach and what I remember most is how much we laughed on these trips. The first year my brother went off to college, I know my Mom worried that our Easter getaways would disintegrate and that her baby boy would want to do spring break with his new college buddies. When my bro came home for Christmas, I think he got my Mom a college sweatshirt but the best gift he gave her was when he asked what the dates were that we were all going on vacation. She was on a cloud the rest of the day and I will admit, I was very excited that our crew was still intact, my brother still didn’t consider me an annoying little sister, and we were all looking forward to some spring break fun.

My Dad made all the arrangements. My brother would fly down to NJ and the 3 of us would meet him at the airport so that all four if us could be on the same plane to the tropical getaway.

Being former military, my Dad has a very regimented travel routine. I always saw the logic in his way – orderly packing, carry-on only, arrive 1.5 hours ahead of time, identification and boarding pass in pant pocket, hussle through security, set up a base point at the gate then go to the bathroom, get food etc., be first on the plane for maximum overhead space, schmooze the counter personnel to see about upgrading…all makes perfect sense. My Mom and brother were more free spirits. We would be in check in line for 30 minutes, finally get to the counter and my Mom would then start searching for her passport. She sought out restrooms at the worst possible time, and my brother walked slower than a snail and was easily distracted if a basketball game was playing on some tv somewhere in the terminal. Lucky for us, my Dad stands head and shoulders above most crowds so he could bellow for us and we could fall in line. We always got to where we needed to be. A well-oiled machine, each with our roles.

So, back to this particular trip – the first one that we didn’t leave the house all together.

My Mom, Dad and I arrive per our usual routine. We arrive at our gate, set up base camp and await my brother’s arrival. We had checked the monitors and knew that his plane had arrived, we had 30 minutes before boarding so all was right in the world. As every minute ticked by that my brother didn’t appear, my Mom grew frantic. He wasn’t answering his cell phone, we had no messages saying he wasn’t making it. My Mom declared that none of us were getting on the plane without Brian. Umm, that sounded like I was going to miss my vacation. Ugh. My Dad wanted us to board and get the precious overhead space figuring Brian would show up but my Mom wouldn’t hear of it.

The boarding process begins and my Mom is on the verge of tears and my Dad is growing frustrated as people board before us. We hear some commotion in the walkway of the terminal. Some people start to board our plane complaining that some kid on a skateboard is flying through the airport, he has a backpack with sneakers swinging off of it and is weaving in and out of crowds. My Dad grumbles to my Mom, “Who would do that?” My Mom’s frown turns upside down and she and I both answer, “Golden Boy.”

Five minutes later, my brother slides into our gate, flips his skateboard up and shoves it in his backpack – the one with sneakers swinging around. “Hey guys, ready to go? I was watching a game and lost track of time. You didn’t have to wait for me, I was going to make it.” You see, things always work out for my brother, he walks the golden path. My Dad, who had just minutes earlier decided whoever was skateboarding through the airport was a rude punk just laughed and said, “glad you could make it. Way to be innovative.”

That kid is a modern day Ferris Bueller.

I Pity The Salesman

By the time the cosmos decided Abraham and I should meet, we both owned homes. So, when we got married and began to merge our belongings, we had to figure out what to keep, what to donate, and what – if anything – we needed to buy new.

My bedroom set was the one I had as a little girl. Abraham’s was a mish mash of dressers and end tables. My bed was as hard as a concrete slab, Abrahams soft and fluffy but not doing anything positive for our backs. The decision was made…we would buy a new bed and bedroom set to begin our married life.

I thought the hard part would be agreeing on a bedroom set we both liked but that was easy. The first store we walked into, the first set we saw, we loved. And as luck would have it, the entire set was within our budget and could be delivered in a week. Score.

Off to find a bed. This is where things get difficult…..why are bed salesmen more annoying and creepy than car salesmen?!?!?!

Abraham and I start at the furniture store. Having learned from my Mom and my couch buying experience, we know to avoid eye contact and shuffle by the salespeople mumbling polite, “we’re all set, thanks” as they ask if we need help. We make it to the bed showroom unscathed. We know our price range which immediately limits us to about 4 bed options.

Just as we are about to sit on one, a salesman spies us and hollers out, “Jump on up there! You have to lay there to get a feel for it so go ahead, lay on down.” I look at Abraham, pleading with my eyes for him to not make me do that. He sits on the edge of the bed, ignores the salesman and starts to talk to me but the salesman won’t be swayed. In a more booming voice he instructs us to the importance of really getting a feel for the bed so we do what any well mannered, well raised children would do…we climbed on up. We lay there on our backs, ensuring we don’t touch, as this strange man watches us and lectures us about the virtues of a quality mattress. He’s jiggling the bed up and down demonstrating the springiness as we lay there bouncing up and down. The salesman starts to sound like a Charlie Brown teacher because all I’m thinking about is how many other people have been on this bed….did they have dirty hair? Is my hair going to be yucky when I get up? Did the people who were here before me feel this awkward?

After what feels like forever, we sit up and are instructed to the next bed. To his credit, Abraham tries to tell the salesman that we are more comfortable discussing on our own and will find him when we make a decision but this guy won’t. go. away. We leave that store telling him we need to think about it and will be back. As we get to the safety of our car, we start laughing about how odd that was and that we will find our mattress elsewhere.

We move on to a bigger chain mattress store. As we walk through the door, Abraham breaks left, I wander right. Uh-oh, how did that happen? Alone across of sea of mattresses, the sales people descend upon me asking about budget, size, firmness. I’m a deer in headlights. I look across the showroom and Abraham is happily wandering, unaccosted by salespeople, reading labels, feeling different beds…he finally looks up and comes to my rescue. Again, the salespeople are insisting we get up on the bed. We go through the same motions as last time but this sales guy is insisting we get “into the mood and cuddle.” Yes, he used the word cuddle. We ignore him and he says again, “you two shouldn’t be shy. You won’t get a feel for the bed if you don’t try it out like you would in bed. Snuggle. Roll around. Give it a work out.” I’m preparing to get up when Abraham grabs me, hugs, kisses, squeezes, rolls me around the bed. As I’m trying to break free and ask what the heck he is doing, the salesman is cheering us on, “That’s right. Really get into it. Gotta’ test it out man!”

We finally sit up and the salesman looks at Abraham and asks, “So sir, what do you think? Good for a tumble with her, eh?” While flattening my hair with my hands, I‘m about to voice my annoyance when Abraham says, “I guess. I mean it was a little uncomfortable because she’s my sister but you told me to go for it so I did.” Abraham gives me the head nod and off we walk. As we reach the door we steal a glimpse at the sales guy and he has a look of perplexed horror on his face.

We ended up calling some 800 number and having the perfect bed delivered.

Insight to all bed sales people...you work in a bed store. Most people aren’t browsing beds like shoes, we’re there to buy. I will find you if I have questions and when I’m ready to purchase otherwise, keep your distance, please. Less is more.