I finally know what is preventing mothers from completing their children’s scrapbooks: scotch tape.
I’m not sure why this is – but trust me. I’m an expert on this, as attested by the scrapbooks I have of my kids that are stuffed in a box with a lot of loose photographs and preschool report cards. The next time you have a whole day to catch up on your scrapbook you’ll see what I mean. You’ll be sitting at a table innocently arranging photos on an acid-free background, and you will suddenly think to yourself, “I need the scotch tape.” So you get up and wander into the kitchen trying to remember where you last saw it. First you try the catchall drawer, but instead of scotch tape you find three pennies and the missing button from your lucky shirt, which, by the way, would be perfect to wear to the Bunko Game tomorrow night. So you try to find the sewing kit that you remember seeing a couple of months ago “somewhere in the garage” – possibly near the scotch tape dispenser
However, you must clear a path to get past the furnace because the garage lacks any sort of organization. Luckily you have some spare time, and you’re just the person to whip it into shape. So you spend the rest of the morning sifting through boxes of old maternity clothes and power tools. Then, as you’re trying to find a place for the wooden table with antler legs that somehow made its way into the garage, you decide that things would go a lot smoother if you could just bring all of these treasures to a place where they would be appreciated like, say, a nice charity organization. And you must bring them today. In fact, this very minute.
But, just as soon as the car is loaded and you pull down the driveway, you notice that the car needs gas, and the only station where you know how to work the pumps for sure is five miles in the opposite direction.
While you are there, you decide to get the free car wash which, after all, you’ve earned by filling up the tank, and you take your place in line, to wait for the four cars before you to fill up.
By the time you finish, all the water in the car wash has made you thirsty, so you stop off at a fast food place to get a drink. While you are ordering, you realize you have nothing for dinner so you go to the grocery store to buy a chicken. Then you decide to add a container of potato salad, a head of lettuce, and a box of cereal for tomorrow’s breakfast.
Before you know it, you have finished next week’s shopping and are struggling to fit all of the groceries into the trunk between the wooden antlers.
You finally arrive at the donation station two hours after you left the house. While you are unloading the car you have a nice conversation with the attendant about the great weather you’ve been having, why “no one makes good wood furniture anymore,” and how the writer’s strike is going to affect this season of “Lost.”
Then you look at your watch and mumble something about having to go because your children will be home any minute. As you get into the car you wonder how the day could go by so fast.
But if you hurry, you might just have enough time to get another picture down in your scrapbook–unless, of course, you remember to go looking for the scotch tape.
