Help! I need somebody!

I do not play the helpless female type very often. It's not how I was raised. It's not in my nature. I might have been good and married when I started putting my own gas in the car but that's because I was spoiled, not helpless. If you want something done, well then, do it.

That's how I got into this whole mess.

Last Friday my Husband came home and I had ripped out the carpet in the family room. The very natural next step is a trip to The Home Depot. I mean, what choice did I leave him, really?

I have it all figured out when I go to The Depot. I Google. I YouTube. Just enough to sound like I kind of know what I'm doing. I can hold my own in that place. Except when I needed to find that backflow sprinkler-y dohicky thingy. Then I just told them I was looking for a sprinkler-y dohicky thingy and they offer to get it for me. I even sport my paint splattered retired scrubs so the newly hired twelve year olds leave me alone. Only the real pros ask me if I need help finding anything. Because if I really knew what I was doing, there'd be less paint on my pants and more on whatever it was I painted last. It's all part of my master plan. I got this covered.

I stock up the cart with my required lumber, impress the dude who cut it with my ability to load in on myself, and then let the checker flatter me with compliments to my license picture. I think his exact words were, "Oh wow! That's a glamour shot." Awww, well hell. He won me over so I let him convince me to let Junior load my car for me. I could of done it myself. I got it into the cart myself, I could get it into the car. But he was so sweet. "No worries, babe. We'll get it for you." If an old Italian man calls me babe, I cave. What can I say?

Exactly one block South from The Orange I'm on the phone with Husband describing all the fun we're going to have and my great, big, fat, family room plans. I glance up just in time to see Junior's crap twine snap. Two 4 x 8 foot pieces of beadboard soar up into the sky behind my car and I swear were floated down by my guardian angel. (Thanks Mo!) I don't know how they missed any of the cars behind me.

"Oh, shit. Oh, shit, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit!!!!" I yell into the phone.

"What do I do!!?"

I did what I've been trained to do in any emergency. Although, I have to add I'm a whole lot more calm when calling due to chest paint or shortness of breath than I was over my precious beadboard.

"911. What is your emergency?"

"Non emergency. But...Um.. I just lost my load from Home Depot in the intersection!!!!!!!"

"I'm sorry. You lost what in the intersection?"

"I lost my beadboard in the intersection!!!!"

They are on their way.

I parked my car with it's hazards on in the nearby gas station. I start walking down the block wondering how long it's going to be before the Po-pos show. I can see my precious beadboard in the road and wince with every passing car. They're going to crush my beadboard! I start to realize that I'm going to be waiting a while, when I reach the corner and realized the enormous magnitude of my guardian angel's love. Both pieces of beadboard are not only still intact but they are in the crosswalk!! I quickly dial 911 back.

"Yeah, I just called. Nevermind."

The 911 operator laughed. She laughed at me! Can they do that?

I retrieve the beadboard and now I'm dragging two 4 x 8 foot sheets half a block back to my car. All those Boy Scouts who sat there and watched me drag them down the street and then load them BY MYSELF into my car, your mother's must be soooo proud. Jerkwads.

I head home. Like nothing happened. I am a bad-ass powertool totin' babe. Later, I rent a gas powered air compressor, a nail gun, two more trips to The Depot, and experience my first masonry paint stripper, and a few rounds with the miter saw.

But I do realize, it must be exhausting to be my guardian angel and my Husband is a very, VERY, patient man.