One of my son’s Halloween props

When I was a little tyke, I avoided embarrassment at all costs. And, if something happened to put me in that predicament, I usually ran away, thinking that everyone would be laughing and pointing at me.

With age comes wisdom, eh? I’m pretty sure people actually do laugh, and possibly point, but the difference now is that I could care less. I choose to find my embarrassing moments to be my funniest ones too. This is a good thing since I tend to have MANY embarrassing moments.

Like today’s incident in the bookstore parking lot.

I took the dude there with the intention of giving him some time with the train in the kid’s section. But also to give me some time with a nice mocha. (From the corporate giant I tend to complain about, yes, but I go there rarely.) So I nabbed my grande mocha and Dev hot-footed it over to the train.

He played for a few minutes before he decided that pulling books off of shelves was more fun than pushing wooden trains on tracks. So I ended the session and we strolled to the car. It was a beautiful fall morning. The sun was shining. The leaves were rustling. And the wind was blowing. Hard.

I set the half-empty cup of chocolate/coffee bliss on the top of the car and opened the door. I actually gazed at it for a few seconds, wondering to myself if it might be blown over by the stiff wind. Eh, I decided…gotta get the kid strapped in, then I’ll grab it.

One toddler arm was through the straps when I heard the muffled “clunk” that told me that the wind had won. I emerged from the car to see my mocha rolling toward me and just missed it. It hit me, then the ground, splashing mocha-ness all over me and the interior of the car.

“Uh-oh!” as Dev would say. And did.

Well now what? I snagged a few tissues from the box, but that wasn’t doing it. Then I realized, hey…I have a toddler. Which means I have wipes. And I grabbed a clump and proceeded to clean myself and the car. I was mad for about 20 seconds really. Because things like this, stupid, careless things like this, happen to me on a regular basis. I believe this says something very pointed about my judgement in such situations. But I obviously choose to ignore those lessons.

I mopped up best I could, finished buckling him in, then stepped out of the car only to find a dried-up stream of mocha along the back panel and down to the rear wheel. Ha! More wipes. More wiping.

Lesson here, one that I’ll probably ignore as usual, is that an autumn wind is definitely a stronger force than a cup of mocha. Let’s just hope the stain remover does it’s job. My favorite jeans got quite a soaking.