Above and beyond

The day wasn’t much more than halfway over, but my eyelids felt excruciatingly heavy. 

The to-do list still had a few more loads of laundry; some weeding of a roadside flower garden (that I have been meaning to do since the school stopped requiring the interception of a parent or guardian to meet the bus); and a trip to the grocery store, which, once accomplished, would be my third visit of the weekend.

The store is only three miles away. Five minutes by car. But somehow those first few steps of putting on shoes, finding my wallet and keys, then locating the reusable totes I never manage to bring into the store anyway, make me feel like I should take a short break … maybe have a glass of cool water, sit on the couch, commune with my phone for a bit … just to be sure my list is complete  … before I make another arduous journey.

“I’ll go.”

My son was standing in front of the refrigerator, holding on to the doors and staring into the abyss long enough to make me wonder if I would have to summon the spirit of my mother and holler something in his direction about “not heating the great outdoors” or “refrigerating the kitchen.”

He closed the ice box with a shrug and deciphered my puzzled expression.

“To the store. I’ll go. What do you want?”

I don’t know how to describe the feeling …

You know? Like when the kids were tiny tots, and they were both sick with some vomit-y plague, and you were a zombie because you never got sleep, but somehow you are resignedly prepared to clean up whatever surface gets splattered?

And then one of the pukers actually makes it to the toilet!

For a brief moment, orchestras play and angels sing. 

You feel re-energized.

… It kind of felt like that.

Wide awake now and enthused by the prospect of not having to circle the store’s aisles until I’d had gathered almost everything I’d come for; finding out in the checkout line, or when filling the trunk with the haul, that I’d forgotten something integral …. maybe the meat for dinner or the eggs for breakfast.

I thanked him as I tapped out a list on my phone that I would send to his phone in the time it would take to drive the two miles.

He would be irritated that some of the items on it were intentionally vague: Meat for dinner, a selection of bread, something for snacks, cat food. But he wouldn’t complain.

Upon his return, he stopped by the garden where I was haphazardly weeding and let me know, enthusiastically, that he had procured a rack of ribs and was planning on slow-roasting them so dinner might be a bit late.

I laugh when I wonder aloud if I should send him back to the store for a lotto ticket.

“You'll have to ask me again in a few weeks when I’ll be old enough.”