Strange Things Are Afoot At The Circle K

In an effort to get some semblance of connectivity to my home (I've been working ENTIRELY too much lately) I decided to knock off around 3PM since I didn't have to be at Bible study until 7PM. Figured it'd be good to have an hour with the wife and then be home when the kids got home on the day they have little on their schedules.

Tracy and I did chat about some stuff...taxes, her photography business, my job, how to be better serving our children. Good stuff, and we wanted to continue the discussion so we got in the car to pick up the girls after school.

And then a series of blogworthy events took place.

First, the lady across the street was doing yardwork. Yeah. Ummmm. IN HER BIKINI! Now, don't get me wrong, she takes care of herself and was simply using the good sun to work on her tan...but let's be honest. When you're really doing yard work (in this case, raking leaves) you know your body bends into positions that you wouldn't want your neighbors to see you in and the neighbors don't want to see you in. I thought of the Seinfeld bit where he talks about how there's "good naked" (like laying on the beach) and "bad naked" (like coughing). Tracy and I both squelched giggles at a particularly "bad bikini" moment.

Second, as we're pulling out of the driveway, we encounter Sam who also lives across the street. Sam's a widower. He's retired. He drives a Cadillac. He golfs. Apparently, he also has found a new time to loiter in his driveway. He's just standing there. Well, not really standing there. He, too, is making observations regarding "good bikini" moments and "bad bikini" moments. Tracy notices and we roll down the window and ask Sam what he's doing. "Working," he says. Now, keep in mind he's standing there in his empty driveway pretty much doing nothing but staring westward. Tracy says, "Uh-huh. Taken a new interest in landscaping, Sam?" "Yep. That's what I meant by 'working.'" We laughed and drove off.

At the stop sign about a quarter mile away we're getting ready to turn right. I notice a car up on small racks, so obviously a neighbor is doing some small mechanical repairs to a car. Only on this car, there were about four guys and a girl, most sporting full "statue of liberty" mohawks and wearing shirts for the Sex Pistols and Slipknot.

Then as we're parked in front of the school a big middle school guy comes walking out in a pink t-shirt. It reads: "Don't laugh. This is your girlfriend's shirt."

Tracy and I had continued our discussion while waiting for the bell to ring and were still engaged in it when Shelby arrives. "What're you both doing here? Are we moving or something?" We explain why we're both there and then Kelsey arrives a minute or two later. "What're you both doing here? We're not moving are we?" We explain it again only to have them both begin to list the cities they want us to move to, which consisted of every major city we couldn't afford to live in, and telling us that it really is okay if we moved and that if they were the reason we weren't moving that we could move because it was okay with them.

On the way home the car repairs continued but I couldn't hear what music they were listening to because of so many questions.

Sam was inside.

So was the bikini-clad landscaper. (Coincidence? I think not.)

And then we had spaghtetti.