Venus and Mars at Thanksgiving

Do you ever feel like your life, if taped and aired on national television, would resemble a sit-com or a tragedy? This weekend, mine bore traits of both.

Wednesday afternoon, after the Zman got home from school, we left for the six and a half hour drive to my mom's house for Thanksgiving. I had packed, organized, and cleaned the night before so that all I had to do was put the food in the cooler and grab our kids and go. My husband had the great idea (and I am not being sarcastic) of listing our ATV on craigslist.com in my mom's town, since ATVs are big stuff in Central Oregon. He got a few calls on it, so we decided to tow it over there and hopefully sell the thing. The night before we left, we had this conversation:

R: Missie, where is the spare key to the ATV?

Me: Wha-? Honey, I have no idea. Where did you last have it?

R: I don't know where it is, that's why I am asking you.

Me: When did you last see it?

R: I remember seeing it in our old house.

Me: The one we sold in July?

R: Duh, what other old house did you think I meant?

Me: So you remember seeing it sometime before we moved in July. July...as in four months ago. As in you haven't seen it in four months. And you are asking me where it is?

R: Did you put it somewhere?

Me: Honey, think...I have been on the ATV like five times since we bought it. I have never been around the thing without you. I have never taken it hunting or camping or anything. Why would I even know we had a spare key?

R: Well, help me find it!!!

Get the picture? Yeah, the conversation was going nowhere. So I started looking around everywhere I could think of where a key might possibly be. And since it's shiny and silver, OH AND LITTLE! it should be no problem finding it. Everywhere I looked, my husband would come behind me and say, "I already looked there. It's not there. Look somewhere else!" After about the fifth time of hearing that, I finally said, "It has to be somewhere. You asked me to help you look. Leave me alone and let me look!"

After about an hour of searching, we couldn't still couldn't find it. We decided that we would just let the new owner know that we had a spare key, and as soon as it was located, we would drop it in the mail. My husband then got the title, the maintenance info, instruction book, etc all together and laid it on our barstool in preparation for our trip the next day. (remember that...on the barstool..)

While packing up the last minute items on Wednesday, I grabbed the stuff from the barstool and told my husband through the bathroom door, "honey, I got all the paperwork and stuff from the stool. I am taking it to the car, okay?" to which he replied "okay". He came out to the car a few minutes later and asked me, "Are you sure you got everything?" to which I replied, "Yes, honey, I got all the stuff from the stool."

(Now, why am I boring you with this little piece of nothing from my life? Besides it's my blog and I can? To further demonstrate how it is such a miracle that men and women have been managing to meet, fall in love, get married, and STAY TOGETHER FOR THOUSANDS OF YEARS when incidents like this happen. Stay tuned...)

We arrived at my mom's on Wednesday night after fun filled trip with two children oh so happy to be in the car and our nerves frazzled. We had a nice restful night, and then were up early on Thursday morning to start preparations for dinner. I won't go into how I burned my forehead with cranberry sauce, or how I forgot my two favorite recipes at home and then couldn't find them online and had to wing it, or how my mom, who has about forty seven frillion jars of spices in her cabinet had NO POULTRY SEASONING, because all that's just not necessary.

My husband took the ATV down to the car wash to clean it all up before the guy came to look at it later in the morning. He was gone about ten minutes when I get this call...

R: Missie....where is the key to the ATV?

Me: (stirring sauce and burning my forehead) I have no idea.

R: Didn't you grab it yesterday?

Me: No, I did not. Where was it?

R: On the counter! With the title and stuff!

Me: No, the title was on the barstool.

R: You said you grabbed all the stuff!

Me: I did. From the barstool.

R: Why didn't you take the key?

Me: I didn't see the key. I didn't look for the key. I didn't think about the key. Why would I be looking for the key?

R: BECAUSE NOW WE DON'T HAVE THE KEY! WE TOWED THIS THING FOR ALMOST SEVEN HOURS AND WE DON'T HAVE THE KEY!

Me: Why didn't you have the key with the ATV since we spent all that time looking for the spare key last night?

R: Because I had the key on the counter so I wouldn't forget it! I was going to grab it when I got the other stuff, but you said you got the stuff and you picked up everything!

Me: I did grab everything. FROM. THE. BARSTOOL.

So, yeah, that made for some Turkey day stress right there. He was mad at me for forgetting to grab the key, and I was mad at him for being the goof who didn't put the key we did have with the ATV so we wouldn't forget it in the first place. After a $20 trip to a locksmith, R was able to turn on the ATV by flicking some dohickey with the engine dealie and could run it. Good times.

Anyway, we did end up having a nice time that day after tempers cooled and the comedy of errors was revealed. We decided that this whole marriage and procreation thing must have been a plan of God, because no way would men and women been able to successfully stay together without divine intervention. And no way would they then travel with their offspring during the holiday season without providential urging.

Nuff said for now. Will post in a few days about the rest of the trip. How was your Thanksgiving?

Someone save me from my parents.