Trapped In A Milk Shake

Today I sat idling in a drive-thru line with one car in front of me for 16 minutes.

Never mind that it was 6:45 PM and I had two cherubs in the back who needed to get to bed.

At 6:30, the thought of getting them a vanilla milkshake to share was a brilliant idea.

Tick-tock went the clock and suddenly, I felt totally trapped and panic-stricken that my children were not home in bed - but prisoners, like me, in our car.

For the first 3 minutes, I actually didn't even realize that the car in front of me hadn't moved. Was too wrapped up in kindergarten stories and Nonie's efforts to echo every last word that Dec says.

Minutes 4-9 I had that, "surely ANY MINUTE now the car in front will get served and then we will be next" belief. This is that funny thing that happens were you spend all your inner powers convincing yourself that what you want is JUST about to happen so there is no need to do anything put sit as still as possible and will it on.

Oh, and while all that inner-psyche-willing-things-to-happen-stuff is going on, it is ever so important to talk calmly to cherubs in back seat about how we're all being

so good and patient....

Didn't work, sooooooo,

minutes 9-14: I actually spent this time looking for the hidden camera.

Was there a mysterious van in the parking lot filming me to see just how peeved I'd get?

Surely this shiny pole to my left has a hidden camera in it.

So, I will spend the better part of a minute staring at it with a smirky smile letting the thumbnail-size camera know, that I know, that it was in there.

After the minute spent staring into a non-existent camera I realized that I was truly tapped.

Unable to back up, unable to pull ahead.

I spent minutes 15-15:30 explaining to Dec & Nonie

that I was just going to ask the woman in the car in front of us "What gives?"

Minute 16 was spent retreating from her driver side window because OF COURSE

her food was delivered just as I'd gotten to her.

And yes. You guessed it....

On the ride home the kids both passed out from exhaustion and

I drank the high-caloric-sugar-infused beverage (no it was not from McDonalds).

Awesome.

But not really.

be nice... or leave

I need to be nice. I know that. But it's not always easy.
I need to bite my tongue.
And put on a fake smile once in a while.
But it's not always easy.
I need to say "great idea"
or "I'll think about it".
But it's so hard.
So hard to have opinions these days.
And keep them to myself?
I am so bad at that.
Because I know it will just stew inside me.
And I'll marinate in negative emotion.
Then I'll bubble.
And you know what happens to bubbles?
They pop.
I got sick of popping a little while ago.
But I never used to be this way.
I was QUEEN of the smile and nod.
But I am changing.
And perhaps at the occasional expense of others-
I think I like it.

Even if Santa is watching.

Can you tell I had a weekend at the outlaw's?
Three months before the wedding?

Can you?

Hugs to MY people. My sweet, let-me-be-myself, people.