*with my deepest apologies to Judith Viorst

It started bitter cold. Monday. I did not want to get out of bed, but I did. The drive to work was dark and cold coffee, fighting back the rush of chilly air against the windshield. Work was pushing sludge, sick staff and meetings on meetings about meetings. The sun slid slowly and sadly across the sky. Dark to dark, there wasn’t much in between except the hope of home and happy children.

Not to be.

Freezing feet fight to get to the truck. Start the engine – oh man, I gotta get gas. Out of the parking lot, around the corner, to the street. Turn and stutter – almost there (am I outta gas already?). Turn again and clunk. Nothing.

Yards away. I can’t push uphill. Gotta go back. Slow, slick, silent. Cold.

Try to start. Clunk…

Call home, crying come get me please. I’m going to Wal-Mart to get warm. What!? No wallet! Wouldn’t have made it anyway. Now I gotta wait…

Hind-sight doesn’t need contacts to see. Something told me it wasn’t alright, but I held to the hope. No more. Got the truck towed. Got the call…

Your truck be RIP.

I want to move to Australia.

This is the first in what could easily, and even possibly, be a long line of related posts where I outline desperately needed inventions for the 21st Century.

Technology got us this far, but it left out some of the essentials along the way. Overlooked are the simple things that would really make our lives easier. We have the microprocessor and the MRI, but I fear we’re not going to get the flying car (a concept first promised “just around the corner” in the 1950’s) unless we get our heads around the things we really need first. Like the self hanging towel.

A self hanging towel is needed to address the problem whereby the kitchen, bath, or hand towel refused to stay put in its proper place. This problem results in a huge spike in frustration among dads who are constantly looking for a piece of cloth to dry the dishes, or their hands, or their very wet, cold, just got out of the shower and who the heck took my… You get the idea.

If it were just me, this problem wouldn’t be a… problem. I am just as happy as the next guy to wipe my hands on my jeans, or to let the dishes dry themselves (or better yet use paper plates so doing the dishes is only necessary when my mom is around). However, I have a pack of wild boys to which I have to teach the finer points of grace and cleanliness. It falls to me, therefore, to be their example. Unfortunately, that example currently consists mostly of me wandering around yelling, “where in the gosh darn world is the stinkin’ towel*?” A fine example indeed.

You see then how extremely important this invention is to my general sanity and to the general peace and quiet of my house. It’s a simple concept. Please, someone rescue my family from this horrible repeating nightmare before things get worse – or I throw in the towel (so to speak) and revert back to my natural pack habits.

*Not an actual quote. This quote was modified to keep the blog relatively clean.

I feel like I’m starting over, learning all my tricks from scratch again. The canvas is similar – familiar as if from a dream walked through several years past. This is not far from the truth. I once walked these streets, briefly, in another life. So much has changed. Enough is familiar.

I try to map the images in my mind with the canvas in front of me. Slowly, I recognize the old standards, and then I can turn down streets untraveled. I quickly turn back when my bearings start to fade, but the map is growing. I am finding my way.

Now I’ve settled in Macville, Windows seems like a strange, odd universe.