Crabby crab crab

Scheduling ourselves has become a very complicated thing as we launch into these days that grant us the earliest whiffs of autumn.

This evening while ripping through a late dinner, KD and I discussed my upcoming school schedule, a trip she's planning that we had hoped we'd both be able to take, the impending arrival of my manchild back to the state after his vacation to visit Dad's side of the family up nort, ya hey dere ... I wondered to myself 'how did we suddenly become so busy?'.

Though we disagree on very little, we don't always agree on what should be the most important thing, my gal and I. I've been through the burning fires of nighttime feedings, the earliest fledgling days of cries and gurgles and stitches to his mouth which came the one day I wasn't watching closely enough and he whacked his face on my bed frame: all these things that have gone into forging my maternal relationship to my kid. I absolutely do not fault her for not having a constant clinging cobweb of parental guilt hanging over her head like the stormcloud-for-one I seem to stand beneath. Rather, I love her all the more for trying so hard to understand my perspective, and moreso - for loving me despite it.


Now that he's nearly 16, maybe I should focus a little more intently on letting my kid go; maybe I should focus on being nearby. Maybe I should remove all the alcohol in the house in preparation for the day he suddenly develops a taste for something throat burningly room temperature. Maybe I should put him in one of those newfangled playpens (sure, call it a Pack n' Play if you want, but c'mon, we both know it's simply a glorified, wordified playpen), complete with the breathable mesh zippered lid to keep him from climbing out. It's for HIS safety, after all. Yeah yeah yeah, the idea that locking him down is primarily to serve his safety, but my contantly worrying mother mind finds the concept consoling.

Needless to say, my main concerns about the upcoming travel plans initially circled like vultures primarily over the kid. He will be starting his junior year in high school which by definition automatically marks him as no babe in the woods, but I worried: what kind of responsible-appearing mother leaves her kid home so she can have a fun birthday cake eating visit with the out-laws? Would I be able to sit with these people I'm still just in the beginning stages of getting to know as Family when the specter of my child's image floats around me, index finger pointed accusingly?

I was surprised at how long it took me to connect various other scheduling issues into the melee of chattering brain monkeys, but a few days ago it occurred to me that I will also be in school in a matter of weeks. When I thought of this it was 3:00 a.m. and I was lying in the dark, in the Baseball-slash-Guest Room at my friend's home in Arlington, Virginia. I didn't have the copy of my class schedule with me and couldn't do a thing about it so, instead, I turned the Discman volume up just a little higher, rolled over to my other side and hoped I'd remember this issue long enough to check the details when I returned home. A-yup, I've got classes on Thursdays and Fridays, both. Shit. I had forgotten that I'd scheduled that digital photo class for Fridays. Shit.

So tonight, between dinner and my house, my favorite gal (ooh, I think I'll call her MFG now, what a nice ring that has!) and I tried to figure out how all these flagrantly unmatched schedules (hers/mine/his/ours) are going to work out together. I don't go along with her to her family gathering... Check. Neither of us are particularly thrilled about my cancellation, but I do feel grateful and I have a sense of relief for having examined my initial guilty hesitations in some depth. What's more, I won't be double-booking my calendar accidentally - or worse, purposefully - in order to try to make everybody happy. Sometimes things just don't work out the way we hope. It happens and, generally speaking, we live to tell about it.

MFG had a long day today, with some unexpected twists and turns that had her feeling crabby, she said. Once we had waded through school calendars and came to realize that I wouldn't be able to travel with her as she/we'd hoped, she got just the tiniest bit crabbier, poor gal.

But she hung in like a trooper - well, not a military trooper because that image is way too formal and involves weapons - just a loving kind trooper who surprises her girlfriend with roses, just because girlfriend arrived home and was missed. That kind of trooper. We waited to claim the long legged baggage that is my child at the bus depot, and once his bus arrived we zipped home. Shortly thereafter Kid drove off with his friend, and MFG & I were left to do some late-night grocery shopping (while the boy was gone I hadn't powershopped like the provider of a male teenage mouth must do on a semi-regular basis; it had to be done).

One of the items on KD's grocery list was canned crab meat. We hemmed and hawed about which of the three varieties of two available brands would be best ...
'are the expensive cans better meat?'
'that one only has eight ounces in the pack, this one is twelve ounces.'

She picked the largest can (you can buy a pound of canned crab meat at the local grocery. who knew?) and we made our way through the aisles as hastily as possible.

When it came time to check out, the clerk swiped the can across the scanner. The can price rang up as $9.50 (give or take a few cents). I asked my gal, 'wasn't that price marked at $8.99 back on the shelf?'. She'd had a long day, she was crabby (and I'd perpetuated the feeling somewhat); this was late night for her -- as much as I wanted to fight in the name of accurate pricing, I also totally understood how ridiculous this could seem to someone who is not-me. Really, who the fuck cares about a 50 cent difference?

The freckle-faced clerk said he'd take over bagging if the bagger dude would go back to doublecheck the shelf price. KD and I chatted away as the clerk scanned and bagged the rest of her items. Bagger Dude returned, mumbling 'Eight ninety nine'.
DING! I did remember that correctly! I can't remember what I'm doing from day to day but hallelujah, I can remember the shelf price on a can of crab meat.

Clerk was about to go back into the register tape to review the scanned price when I noticed a sign next to the ATM swiper machine and quickly interrupted him. "Say, does that mispriced can count in this 'if you are charged incorrectly for an item and you bring it to our attention, the item is free' deal?" He thought for a few seconds and responded that yes, yes indeed it does. He'd forgotten about that program. After all, he said, it's not like the higher-ups at the store like to remind staff to actually catch errors or encourage customers to do the same.

So the $8.99 can of crab meat came to KD totally free, making my previously crabby girlfriend quite smiley indeed. In noticing and standing up for her mispriced can I certainly couldn't have erased her sense of disappointment at my trip cancellation but I hope I was able to adequately communicate that even during our crabbity crab crab times I'll have her back.