Recovering From The Kids

 It was wonderful having the family here visiting, and this morning I finally found the hair dryer, tucked under a bedside table in the little back guest room. That about does it.

I have no idea which harried parent shut which little kid out on the porch to watch TV, right next to the wicker chair with all that tempting wound rattan.  Or to be more precise, formerly wound rattan.

I’m still wondering who parked my car under the sparrow tribe in the buckthorn tree, with the resulting splats on the hood and incidentally the radio pre-sets changed to an assortment of ear-splitting stations.  Or who stowed the handicap parking permit in the passenger-side map pocket, where I didn’t think to look for a week.

It took only a few days to figure out how to get the outside post lantern on at dusk, off at dawn again.  Someone must have jiggled the wrong switch; admittedly, it’s tricky.  Re-setting the night light on the microwave took longer – I  finally had to dig out the instruction manual.

I couldn’t understand why the clothes dryer was so slow, had already called a repairman when I noticed that all the heat and fan settings had been changed. And my best spatula has disappeared.  Sure, I have other spatulas, but it’s almost impossible to cook without that particular one I’ve had for at least 50 years.  I’m not exactly saying anyone stole it, but you’d think it would have turned up by now.

Probably the unkindest kindness of all – one morning after highly successful popovers, some misguided person energetically scrubbed my cast-iron pans within an inch of their lives.  It’ll take months to get them properly seasoned again.

When I came back from taking the last kids to the airport, the garage door opener didn’t work but I managed to haul the door up myself.  Strained my back for at least a week, then finally noticed the automatic opener has a manual override cord dangling from it.  Obvious: what ten-year-old boy, suddenly tall enough to reach that tempting red cord, could walk through the garage without pulling it to see if something would happen.

 And don’t even get me started about the thermostats!