When You Come Back Home Three Hours Later And This Is What You See
Serendipity at its finest
*chirp* *chirp* repetitive and annoying, like a dripping faucet. It’s 7am and had only been back to sleep for a couple of hours when…
*chirp*
Freakin smoke detector right outside the bedroom door. Gaaaaa!
I pull myself and the house together and hit the road. First stop? Rehab. Dad needed hankies and some toiletries, plus some hearing aid batteries. I had two out of three. Dropped off everything but the batteries with the message that I had been to one store already and they didn’t have them, but I’d keep looking until I found them!
Next stop? Rite Aid. A ton of hearing aid batteries, but none that matched the type ID that my sister had given me. I sent her a long text asking for clarification and walked the entire store while I waited. I didn’t hear from her until I was almost at my next stop.
Walmart. I knew Dad would pop in and out at Walmart whenever he needed his scripts so I thought, hey, maybe that’s where he got them. Two brands. Neither had numbers that matched what I had been given. By now I was being to wear out. Then I noticed something on one of the packets. The number 13. I had been told P-13, but what if… Read the fine print. Eureka! Fits all hearing aids that need a 13 battery.
(Insert Snoopy happy dance here)
I snagged those puppies and headed back out. Swung back by Dad’s home away from home and dropped those off. I told the front desk girl that I wanted a room too because I was up there WAY too much!
After I climbed in the car to head home, I remembered two things. One I remembered when I saw the two dead 9V batteries sitting in the cupholder. I had been so fixated on the hearing aid batteries that I had totally forgotten about the smoke detectors. The closer to the house I got, the more tired I got. I rationalized that what were the odds after 3+ years of living here would there be a house fire now?
Something said to suck it up and go get them. What was one more stop after a couple of hours of running, right? Begrudgingly, I pulled into a local market, grabbed the 9Vs, and jumped back in the car. I recalled an earlier conversation about Dad wanting his haircut. What the hell? May as well. The shop he goes to in order to get his haircut is on the same street as this shop. What’s one more pit stop?
Over the river and through the woods I go. I pop in and chat with his stylist. She had just gotten back from a 6-week leave as her husband just passed. Mind you, this is the third woman I’ve talked to since Dad’s strokes that has lost her husband, two of them recently. What in the actual hell is going on in this area that men are dropping like flies suddenly?
I’m still processing this information when I see a traffic situation up ahead. So I hang a hard left and take back roads of back roads. Of course, the side street I needed was blocked by some jackass sitting with a huge pickup truck with some sort of gizmo wagon-looking thing attached on the rear. AND of course, he was parked in the center of the road.
I kept going.
Now I’m wondering if I’m in the next town when BOOM, I realize where I am. The opposite end of the development that I usually enter from.
I’LL TAKE IT!
As I turn the corner onto our street, this is what I was greeted with. By taking the long route I circumvented traffic, construction, and a house fire!