april fool(ish)

The last 7 days have been a comedy of errors. I will recount them by their degree of tragedy.

It rained here from Sunday through Wednesday. Rain, rain, rain. The ground was soggy, the sky was grey, and ducks were swimming in low-lying yards that had become ponds. In the middle of the rainy spell, I headed out to run some errands. As I was driving through our neighborhood, I rounded the bend where the road runs parallel to a bay. The water looked high. "Must be high tide," I thought. The road had water on it, which is nothing new, given the rain, but it seemed to be more than usual. A nagging voice in my head reminded me that our neighbors had talked about high tide covering the road, but my desire to get out of the house, coupled with my disbelief that the tide could trap me in my neighborhood, convinced me to keep driving. It seemed fine. For about 2 seconds. On the third second, I started panicking. The water was DEEP and my car was leaving a wake of brown foamy brine in the side mirrors. As I white-knuckled the steering wheel, I remembered that my neighbor had actually gotten stuck in the tidewater and had to leave the car and walk home. Oh, geez. I couldn't wait to explain this to Matt . . .

This story does not end in tragedy. I made it through and stopped on the other side next to a waiting Jeep. Feeling the need to share my experience with these strangers, I rolled down the window and gasped, "I don't think I should've done that!" They looked down at me in my little car with my rain hood pulled over my head and nodded, "I don't think you should've either." Then the woman called, "Drive! Keep driving! Drive it off!" So I did. I drove off. My heart rate returned to normal, and hopefully the undercarriage of the car will not rust into a heap.

Because I'm not the only foolish one around here, I will briefly state that Matt went into the city last weekend to meet his brother, planning to stay at his friend's apartment that we always stay at when we visit. He called me at midnight, asking for the train schedule, because he had grabbed the wrong keys and couldn't get into the apartment. Nice. Not only had I been awakened to look up train times, but if they took the train, I'd have to drive to the station pick them up two hours later . . . fortunately they decided this was impractical, and Matt rode the subway around NYC to borrow another set of keys and set them up for the night.

Finally, the crux of foolish behavior . . . One rainy night I couldn't find my phone, and dismissed it, thinking I'd left it in the car. With no desire to walk out in the rain to get it, I went to bed and slept the peaceful slumber of the naive. The next day I threw on some shoes and dashed out to the car. No phone. I casually mentioned it to Matt and we tried calling my phone in the house. No ringing. Matt checked the car again. No dice. I felt a twinge of worry. "Matt, what if it fell out of my pocket and sat in the rain all night?" Matt took one look out the kitchen window, solemnly told me to sit on the couch, and headed out to the car. I dashed to the window and saw my poor forgotten phone lying facedown on the driveway, battered by the night's storm. I also heard a sickening thud and a forlorn yelp of pain from Matt, who managed to smash his head into the overhang on his way down the basement steps. At this point I was close to tears, and like a five-year-old, deemed this the "Worst Afternoon Ever!"

Matt brought in the phone and retreated to the couch to rest his head while I checked for symptoms of concussion for him and life for the phone. Both were negative. I started calculating the cost of replacing my phone, but Matt suggested we put it in a bag of rice. It was a long and worrisome day, and we left it in the rice overnight. The next day I vacuumed out the phone and tried to turn it on. Nothing. Fortunately Matt, who had suffered no long-lasting affects from the head bump, suggested I charge it. Thirty minutes later, the sweet sounds of life chirped from my resurrected phone.

I'm not kidding you, the thing works like a charm.

It's an Easter miracle.

I think I've paid my dues of crazy mistakes this week and can enter April sane and coherent. Let's hope.

.happy easter.