A whole lot of trouble would be saved for poor Grandma if she’d just start crawling under beds and behind couches 30 minutes earlier.
The texts start coming in when we’re about 20 miles along in a 600-mile drive.
It’s a picture of a blue shirt and the message, sent to four or five of us: “Does this belong to anyone?”
Another ping of the phone, a picture of a ring, and the message, “Whose is this?”
A third ping, a third picture: “I found this sock behind the washer.”
A little panic runs through me as it does every year around this time: Did I leave any underwear lying around? Please God don’t let Grandma come across any undies. It would be just plain embarrassing to have a photo of those sent over the family chat, and in fact, just to have anyone else pick them up. Hopefully Grandma has the presence of mind, or can read our minds enough, to just pretend she didn’t find any panties at all, and throw them away.
And how can it be possible we have left things behind, after we, ourselves, have crawled under beds and behind couches, scoured the bathroom, shaken out the sheets, checked the mud closet and boot racks, peeked behind chair and lifted up cushions?
Even more, what kind of magic does Grandma have that she can find everything so quickly after we have left – after a team of us has done our own search?
Finally, we got home and unpacked, and I was one boot short.
These were my great new pair of solid, sturdy, quality hiking boots that I had been very excited about. Yet only one made its way out of the car.
Considering how small are the items that Grandma finds we have left behind – a ring, for goodness’ sake?! – how can a stray boot not have been obvious?
Grandma’s so dedicated about mailing stuff that she’d definitely go through the trouble of carefully wrapping, packing and mailing a hefty, dirty boot, which seems so much more complicated than mailing a shirt, a sock and a ring. I don’t want Grandma to go through that trouble, and plus, I’d be embarrassed to ask Grandma about the boot. If she hadn’t found it yet, she’d go through trouble looking for it now and making yet another trip to the post office to mail it out, when it could just stay there at the house until we come back at Thanksgiving.
(Of course, so could have the shirt, the ring and the sock, but that was my favorite shirt, and I felt a little sense of mourning to be without it and gratitude that Grandma is so very much on the ball.)
The day after our return, the teenager is sent out to clean up the car after our long trip (isn’t it a real treat when they get old enough to be so helpful?).
“I found your other boot,” she says later in an offhand way.
Whew. It seems like we’re caught up.
Until this process is repeated again at the Thanksgiving trip.
