You don’t need all the sordid details (although that would be fun, eh?), but let’s just say I was pretty wretched to my poor husband this past holiday weekend. My parents took the girls from Thursday at 5pm to Saturday at 5pm–their first time to spend the night by themselves at Grandma and Papaw Yoder’s house. They had a blast. And I was a brat.

But I said that already.

We met Mom and Dad’s at Benny’s Pizza in Marysville (roughly halfway between our houses) Thursday evening. And oh, my word. Why did I not know about this place before now? YUM. We ate, said our good-byes, my folks left with our girls, and Gabe and I embarked on 48 child-free hours.

First stop–Micro Center, then Target for an exciting purchase that we should have made a long time ago but didn’t want to spend the money. At least we’ll have it for our last 12 zoos (and it was on sale). More on that in a later post.

Fast forward to Friday. We slept in until 10am (!!). I mowed. Gabe worked on Kaye’s new website. I went to the thrift store (got 2 pairs of shorts and a t-shirt for CA for $3.90). We had plans to take a bus to Red, White, and Boom in downtown C-bus. We were going to leave at 5:30ish for a concert by the river–one of Gabe’s friends is in a band. On the way home from the thrift store, I started thinking about how much I hate stuff like this. Crowds, concerts, fireworks, seven stinking child-free hours of sitting on a blanket doing NOTHING when I could be writing. Or reading!

LSS (long story short), I was in a bad mood when I got home. Gabe asked what was wrong and I told him how much I was dreading the evening. Calmly and coolly, he said he’d rather go by himself if I was going to be so miserable, and I let him go. I knew I was being completely selfish. What kind of wife gets time alone with her husband and chooses to read a book instead? Why couldn’t I give him seven little hours? I knew God wouldn’t bless my writing time, because I knew I was supposed to be at RW&B with Gabe. Grrr….

I wrote for awhile, made some popcorn, ate it while I read a book and drank Mountain Dew. Then one of the characters in the book did something really selfish, and another character made a comment about her not thinking about anyone but her own self-centered little self, and…

I knew what I had to do.

So, I packed a backpack with Pepsi and Pringles, my book (ahem), giraffe journal, and purple pen, a big beach towel, a jacket for Gabe, and my chapstick. I got on the internet to see where the COTA bus pick-up was (no way would I get a parking spot downtown with 500,000+ people in attendance), grabbed my keys and cell phone, and hopped in the mini-van. Stopped at the ATM, drove to the bus stop, parked my van, walked to the bus acting like I had actually ever gotten on a city bus before in my lifetime. (okay, so I have but not by myself)

I got a seat in the front facing a row of three seats on the other side of the bus. The seats to my left and right were empty. There were three guys (18-20ish) sitting across from me. I thought about getting my book out but something stopped me. Instead I tried to act nonchalant and just stared out the window.

Everything was fine until one of the guys in front of me nudged my shin with his foot.

“So, what’s your name?” he said, while his two friends snickered.

Great. Now what?

I raised my eyebrows, pretended to be thinking, and opened my mouth.

(to be continued…)