Subway

This picture sums up last week.

I hereby apologize for all of the times in the past that I have misused the term “pulled muscle”.  Any “pulled muscle” I referred to before was actually me being a weenie.

I pulled my calf muscle on Sunday night. It felt like my muscle became a rope pulling taut, jumping off the bone, then radiating nails and razor blades throughout my leg. The pain was a mere shade less than the night time calf cramps I get if I work out, the ones that have me screaming profanities before I’m fully conscious. I couldn’t walk at all for twenty-four hours. How did I pull it, you ask? Yoga? Running? Kickboxing?

I leaned over my bed and picked up some papers for recycling.

This seems like a good time to mention, I’ve been reading a lot of female authors from the 19th century lately and there are quite a few of them who manifested what surely were psychosomatic illnesses and ailments that thereby allowed them to slip out of household tasks and write. Huh.

So I pulled my calf. Then we got more snow.

Winter Recess is an evil creation that I’ve heard of only in this part of the country. It’s a week long break from school around the third week of February and CC is always in production for it, leaving me and the kids trapped in the house together during the day. We wanted to escape. Shoveling was completely out of the question for me because of the leg, so the kids had to do the driveway and dig out the van. Thankfully, it’s my left calf, so I could drive.

We went to Target and spent two hours and several hundred dollars. Bras, socks, underwear, school supplies. I bought myself my birthday present from CC (it was on sale and he won’t have time to get me anything anyway). Everybody got a treat. I used the cart as a walker. It was remarkably effective.

We stopped for Subway on the way home. Kids are not efficient getting out of a car. There were bags to move, drinks to find cup holders for, candy I had to remind them to leave in the van. I had to unlock it once because #3 forgot something. Even so, they were about nine times faster than me, gimping along. Then there was the snow to contend with. I mentally flipped off the parking meter because I wasn’t going back in the van for change.

As we were walking in, #3 pointed out a handwritten sign on the door, “No Credit Card Today, Cash Only,” and she said, “Is that a problem?” and of course it was, because any time I get any actual cash, one of the six other people in my house needs it for something. So we all went out and got back in the van. Moved bags, retrieved drinks, fastened seatbelts, resumed eating candy. I started the car.

#2: What are we gonna do? Can we road trip to another Subway? Or are we gonna take the easy way out?” (I still wish I had any idea what that meant.)

Me: Umm, I guess I’ll just go to the bank.

#3: Wait, I have cash!

Me: How much?

#2: Well, between the two of us we have, like $70.

Jesus. Turn car off. Seatbelts, bags, drinks, candy, forget change for meter again, snow. . .

I always panic a little at Subway. Every time we go, I make at least one of the kids come in with me. I panic about getting the orders wrong. I also panic at the thought of other customers coming in when we’re in the middle of a six-or-seven-sandwich order. I hate holding up the line. Of course, this day, a guy walked in before they’d even finished our first sandwich. Then another guy walked in. I apologized as we left. I’m pretty sure it was now forty-five minutes since we’d first pulled up in front.

Me, to #2: So I owe you $30.

#2: Except I owe you $15 for the makeup at Target.

Me: Okay, so I owe you $15. Wait, except I already owed you that $15 you owe me for the makeup for babysitting, so… (brain starts to hurt)

#2: What we’ll do is take that money and add it on to the other money. . .

Me: We need a sheet.

#2: Yeah.

Me: We need a ledger.

#5: What’s a ledger?

Me: It’s a sheet.

#5: (silence, trying to figure out why I need bedsheets to pay them their allowances)

#2: Can I just state for the record that I love this family?

Can I just state for the record how much it means to me that the above statement came from our fifteen-year-old Chief Dark Cloud? Some mothers treasure first words, first steps; I missed all that. I treasure every moment a teenager doesn’t hate me.