You probably don't know this, but at our house, Sunday is such a special day. I mean real special. I have said before and I'll say it again, I'm usually a pretty easy going kind of person. I mean, I like to be happy. I like to laugh. You know, not a Grinch type of person.
Until Sunday rolls around. Then all bets are off and the ugly comes out. Why does this happen? Because we are on our way to church, that's why! My favorite is when we get in the car and there is fighting all the way to church. Seriously. Nagging, complaining, the 'ol, "she touched me!", "he touched me!!" You might think I'm joking but I'm not.
Then we roll into the parking lot and I kid you not, these words have come out of my mouth before: OK EVERYONE, PUT YOUR JESUS SMILE ON! WE'RE GOING IN!
It's like a transformation has occurred. Everyone gets out, finds a friend and boom! Happy is in the house!
Now for the serious part. If you know me at all, you know that I cannot pretend to be happy when I have just been fried and served up on a platter. And this is all on the way to church. Shouldn't it be a happy time? I mean, of course there are times when you are down and need to see friends and be encouraged, but overall, getting in the car to drive for twelve (12) minutes, should not be this bad! Especially to go to church! And we don't even start our gathering until 10:30 in the morning!
There are some days when the stars are all lined up and Saturn is in her 5th moon. We drive to church and everyone is... quiet. Pixie dust was sprinkled and it is so beautiful.
I know that some of you have had similar experiences so don't pretend you haven't! I won't believe it.
This past week was one of those weeks. We had a few extra kids over on Saturday and we were going to visit another church where our kids had gone to VBS last week. The kids have been to this church before and I wrote about it here. They are the church with the crying room. Yea. That one. I'm still not sure who that room is really for!
However, I digress. We were going for a Sunday visit there because the kids had their ending program for the VBS they had gone to.
This was no small feat. It required us to get up and rolling by 8 a.m. at the latest. Do you have any idea what this did to the psyche of my children? ESPECIALLY Chloe and Zach! Poor Chloe was running on about seven hours of sleep for the previous couple of nights. Add that in with four softball games in two days and that is a concoction for death! She generally requires about twelve hours to make her pleasant. You see, we had to leave our house by 9:09 a.m. to get to this church by 9:57. World, we do not rouse from sleep until 9 or 9:30 am in this house. And that is only on Sunday. For Pete's sake (I don't really know who Pete is, but, oh well...) that is asking just a bit too much!
Chloe and Zach were all excited to go and be a small part of what was going on, so they were up and ready to roll. Well, it wasn't too painful. Only a few minor rumblings on the Geiger counter. Oh, and Sophie was sleeping on the couch with her friend and she gave me a look of death when I turned the living room lights on at 8:15 a.m.. The nerve! Other that that, we were doing great!
Like I said, all was going according to plan and takeoff was going to be on time. Of course that usually only occurs in my head.
Today was no different.
We ("We" is being used very loosely here) had to let the chickens out of their pen, let the dogs out for their breakfast and a good run before leaving, gather shoes, make sure we have an inhaler ~ asthmatics need those, and try to get out the driveway without killing any more critters. Yes. There was a fatal incident here on Friday which was unknown to a few of the people in our house on Sunday morning. But that is another story for another day. You might think I have adult onset A.D.D. if I go into another story. Wait. What were we talking about???
So, Willow was put back in her kennel because she would destroy any and all things in her path. It's what puppy labs do. Brutus lunges ahead of her with a giant smile on his face, like he enjoys being a martyr. Duchess. She won't darken the kennel with that puppy after having been there all night so she runs freely while we are gone. She protects the property and keeps all the riff raff out. Or at least the turkey vultures.
Critters were away, shoes were on, hair was brushed, bibles gathered, AND... we were still about seven minutes off our departure time. I do not know how these things happen. I get it all planned out and still, still we are late getting out. With a lead foot though, surely we could make it just in the nick of time.
We were all seated in the car and it was on. I looked at Rodger and said in the sweetest way possible to my "speed limit or under" driver, "Listen, we are a bit late with the take off, so if you are uncomfortable with driving fast, please! Let me take the wheel. I'll drive real fast for us."
I was totally serious too. Rodger proceeded to look at me sort of sideways and he put it in reverse. I'm not sure he was listening to me.
This is where it gets good.
Rodger actually drove fast. I mean, he was going at least five miles over the speed limit! Y'all! This is like seeing a sloth go from crawling on the ground, to being on all fours and running like a turtle! His game was ON!
We had to drive about forty minutes to get to the church we were going to and we managed to make it out of town relatively quickly and effortlessly.
North of us there is a large Mennonite/Amish community. On Sunday's you need to plan ahead to make sure you don't get stuck behind a caravan of turtles (do you see the turtle theme here?).
Of course! We were stuck behind a caravan of turtles. For at least twenty minutes. We had all kinds of visions of being very kind to the said turtle drivers. We pass them going 70 miles an hour and lip to them that we are on our way to church! Sorry!
But it didn't happen. We were stuck behind them.
Then Rodger was getting antsy. His brain was rolling with how we could get there quicker and get out of the caravan of character training.
There was a road up ahead that we were coming up on and he was sure that we were going to cut out a few minutes and make up for lost time. So he made a sharp and quick turn onto this road. By now he was looking a little crazed in the eyes. Like he had to turn up the heat on the speed. I did ask him to be mindful of the Amish that might be out in their buggies because hitting one would really ruin my day.
We picked up speed and were on our way to the connecting road. Then there was that flock of birds we were driving through. I was getting a little nervous because I didn't want to kill any birds. I do like animals, unlike some who won't even swerve a smidge to miss a kitty. I will not mention any names... I'm above that kind of behaviour.
It was looking like all the birds were going to escape a narrow and premature death. Then one came in for the windshield kill! I was watching in horror ~ and I do mean in horror. It was like a train wreck. I couldn't turn away! It was within an inch of looking like one of those birds in the game Angry Birds on your smart phone ~ feathers everywhere! Then it swerved. Before it could swerve I looked over at Rodger wondering why he wasn't slowing down and then HE DUCKED! HAHAHA! He ducked in the car!
Of course we were all in a state of hysterical laughter because it was just so funny! I suppose you probably had to be there, but trust me. It was funny.
Then the funny was gone because he looked over at the road we were going to turn on and LO! There was a train sitting at a dead stop, right across the tracks. But wait! Maybe we can get through.
We turned onto the road and to our relief the train was not blocking the tracks for us to cross! YEA! I thought I heard the Hallelujah chorus in the background
Then it started to move over the tracks. The train engineer waited until we got within one minute of crossing those tracks to get to the church on the other side of the tracks and he fired her up. The train was moving!
Again, we were all wondering if we were ever going to get to the church! Surely it shouldn't be this difficult. And the joy? There was not one argument the entire way. See? Miracles do happen? Haha!
To our great relief it was actually a short train and it passed very quickly. We crossed and got into that church pronto! I figured we would have to walk straight up the middle and sit in the front row. You know that is the only row that is left that late in the morning. If you want to sit in the back, away from the conviction and direct eye contact, you need to get there early! For pity's sake, if you learn nothing from me, at least learn that!
Oh no. There was not one seat left for us anywhere. So naturally it was very disrupting. Some of the people had to get up and make a whole new row for us in the back ~ in the fire/emergency escape aisle. I'm positive there were some fire escape codes broken on Sunday morning. Perhaps some seating occupancy codes maxxed out...
The good news is that we made it and now everyone there knows who Zach and Chloe belong to!
No one fought in the car on the way there.
We had a brunch after church and it was great!
So this is what it is like for us to get to church on any given Sunday. I'm just being real. Not every week is there arguing, but it does happen.
We are going to go on a vacation this summer and it is a twelve hour drive! We prepare for these trips by loading up on quarter rolls and everyone gets one full roll at the end of the trip IF they don't fight and IF they don't ask every five minutes if we're almost there. Otherwise that is one quarter taken out. Would you believe that we have actually gotten all the way to our destination on past trips with the kids getting a full roll! And we can't even go twelve minutes to church...
Maybe I should do this on Sunday's?
Tammy
No comments:
Post a Comment