Waiting

Wrote this at the bus stop yesterday....

Waiting....
I've done an awful lot of it lately. Let's see, 15 min. with each child at the bus stop in the morning - 45 min. Between 45 min. and 1 hour waiting for all the bus runs in the afternoon (if they're not late.) Approximately 2 hours of my life M-F spent waiting. That doesn't include waiting in line at the grocery store, the post office, the doctor, the dentist, on hold on the phone, and let's not forget the biggie (in any major US city) - waiting in *traffic*.

Really, there's only 2 choices about waiting. You can wait patiently, or impatiently. A lot of people know exactly how to wait impatiently - eye rolling, sighing, pacing, watch checking. Many these days will wait by falling into their electronic devices - fiddling obsessively with their cell phone or blackberry. Which is fine by me. But then I love the ones who stand in line having A VERY LOUD CONVERSATION or worse yet a FIGHT on the phone with their significant other/best friend/fill-in-the-blank. While standing there. In. Line. Where you can't escape them. And you stand there wondering where to put your eyes, wishing you had ear plugs, and pondering how technology has really made things interesting for those of us who prefer to not air our dirty laundry in public. (Don't even get me started on people who have entire conversations with someone while using a *public restroom*. Sorry, but that is just wrong, on so many levels. Really? That call was that urgent you couldn't wait 2 minutes and have it *outside* the bathroom. Ahem, I digress.)

So in the interest of saving my sanity, I'm trying to practice ways of patiently waiting. I'll be at the bus stop - look for the person reading (or writing in) a book.

*Not* such a great idea

Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Hmm. I wonder how many tales of housekeeping woe begin that way. Just to save everyone else the trouble, a hint: keeping a bottle of laundry detergent in the trunk of your car is not such a hot idea. Especially when it is hot, outside.

On the way out to West Virginia for our camping trip our youngest had a little, um, carsickness trouble. It seemed prudent, once we got our campsite set up, to visit the local grocery store for a few necessary foodstuffs and some.... cleaning products, preferably "green" ones I could use at the campground instead of tracking down a laundromat in the tiny town of Davis.

I was happy to find a reasonably small bottle of scent-free, biologically friendly liquid detergent - which worked great to clean up Connor's clothes, and didn't have to worry about hurting the environment or attracting bears.

The stuff worked so well we decided to keep it in our camping stuff for any such emergencies. And then after the last time we unloaded the car, it got left/forgotten in the trunk - oh sure, I saw it there, but it only registered as a brief "oh yeah, I better put that away somewhere at some point soon."

Mmm. This afternoon I went to put Connor's portable stroller back in the trunk after walking home from the bus stop - and, there was a puddle in my trunk. It was a small puddle, but I bet if I added water the residue left from it rolling around in there for a few weeks would probably wash the rug of the whole car.

Think maybe I could send my husband out with a scrub brush and do just that? After all our road trips this summer it could really use a scrubbing.