I decided to take my car in for a professional car wash for the first time in way too long. The first time I got in it after our trip, I noticed that it didn't smell very good. And the windshield and tires were filthy. Running it through the car wash at the gas station periodically just wasn't doing the trick. I wouldn't mind if it were just me, but I was going to be driving Mom around and I wanted it to be presentable. It looked great when they finished and I resolved to take it to the pros more often.
After work, I packed up my car, said a slightly weepy goodbye to my patient, long-suffering husband, and got on the road. I had leftover cupcakes and decided to take some with me. I knew Mom and Dad would appreciate them, just like they appreciated my vacation bible school art projects and my grade school guitar recitals. I packed them carefully in a sealable container made specifically for cupcakes (yes, such a thing exists) to be sure they made it safely.
There is a lot of construction on the highway between my home and my parents' home, which has been the case for the entire 24 years since I moved away from my hometown, and probably will be the case forever. Since you never know where the slowdowns, accidents, and lane closures will be, I have a few landmarks where I check in so they will know when to expect me. The last check in is after all the construction and usually about an hour away from their house.
My trip was generally uneventful. There were a few lane closures for construction, but traffic was light, so it didn't slow things down too much. As I should have expected since I was driving at sundown, my freshly cleaned windshield became a final resting place for an appalling number of bugs. No problem - I'd just squirt some wiper fluid on it and let the wipers get to work. As the wipers streaked across the windshield I remembered...oh, yeah...I was going to replace the wipers because they were no longer fit for their intended purpose. Now I had a huge, gummy, streaky paste of insect parts where my windshield used to be. Kind of like rubbing Vaseline on your glasses.
I called at my last check in spot and gave my parents a definitive arrival time. And I would have made it, too, if it weren't for the unexpected lane closures 20 minutes from their house. From three lanes down to one, just as you enter a large metropolitan area. The most cars I'd seen on the entire three-hour drive, and apparently they were all going to the same place. So much for my definitive arrival time.
Even with all the high speed driving and sudden construction-related stops, the cupcakes did fine, thanks to the handy carrier. When I finally pulled into my parents' driveway, I was pleasantly surprised to see they hadn't moved so much as a millimeter. Feeling relieved, I pulled them out of the car. And caught the carrier on the passenger seat, knocking it sideways and spilling the cupcakes into a big, jumbled mess. Sigh.
So, to recap: I showed up to my parents' house late, with a filthy windshield and a messy pile of what used to be cupcakes. All I was missing was a macaroni necklace and the world's slowest out-of-tune version of "When the Saints Go Marching In." They were still happy to see me, because parents are awesome that way. Still, I could have saved myself a lot of time and effort and had the same result. Oh well, it's the thought that counts, right? Right???
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