Showed up at pick up today–on time, swear– to find Lily in tears and Sam worrying. “I SAID you told us not to ride the bus,” he declared, but they wanted us to ride it anyway! I TOLD them you always forget to call…”
Whoops. In my defense, my day was so packed and one thing after another that I didn’t even drink COFFEE until after noon and I never did get that shower. Working up to that now. But he’s right. If they know what to do, I guess I don’t think I should HAVE to call. So I “forget.” Time to work on my rule following!
In the annals of the small town, today we were expecting a large delivery (a thing for the basement for Sam to shoot hockey goals). Large. But not large enough to require a tractor trailer truck…still, this is what they sent. Up our road. Our crappy dirt road. In December.
This went badly for the driver, and I actually pulled up behind him on the way home from said pick-up. He got out to apologize for blocking the road, and I said, dude, it’s ok, it’s my stuff. He could back out, he thought, if we could put the stuff in my SUV.
But it was big. Really very big. The UPS truck pulled up behind me about then, and the driver got out, said hey–because he knows me, of course. He’s a fantastic guy who once came to me all worried because he’d delivered something to a neighbor that he knew was a Christmas gift, and you could tell what it was on the box, and should he hide it?
Anyway, there was much consternation. A plan was formed wherein the stuff could be propped on the top of my car, and the UPS driver, who had a partner that day, would ride leaning out the window on one side, and the partner on the other, and we could get it up the road.
I am not sure I’m insured for that, but I was game. Sadly, it was too heavy. We couldn’t get it on top of the car.
So I called a buddy at the hardware store and the truck backed down the road (which was terrifying to watch) and there it sits. We will have to go down and take it apart to get it here. And that’s clearly in the “annals of a small town” category.
Finally, tonight was Sam and Lily’s concert, and before the K, 1 and 2 graders sang, they turned up the lights and had them all wave to their parents while we waved back, so they wouldn’t be looking for us the whole time. I thought that was brilliant.
Oh I hate it when they swend tractor trailers to our little roads around here! We had a furniture delivery once on our old road which was a dead end and they called from the grocery store in town at 11pm on a Sunday night and Jason had to take the seats out of our SUV and make two trips down to the store to get the furniture out of their truck. And since we’d paid for in home delivery, the driver and assistant had to cram in the SUV with the furniture in order to bring the stuff into our house and take away all the packing material which meant Jason had to drive them back down to their truck around midnight that Sunday night.
And now we are anxiously awaiting delivery of our new dining room table. There is barely one lane plowed on our road, so it’ll be an adventure for the driver for sure. At least our driveway is easier than yours!
We tell parents at the beginning of school that if their child isn’t taking the bus, they need to call or write a note. If I didn’t put my students on the bus every time they said a parent was coming to get them, I’d be waiting hours for the parent to come while the parent was expecting them to show up on the bus.