Monday confessional - fire edition

When my mother and I adventure out together, something is always sure to go amiss. We like to joke that we are our very own Laurel and Hardy show.

Once, after shopping together half an hour away from home, my Chevy Tahoe started to sound strange and wouldn't go fast at all... I ended up driving all the way home with my blinkers flashing going about 15 mph while talking alternately with Russ and our mechanic on the phone about how awful it was acting. Russ met us at home ready to take it straight to the shop only to discover Mum had accidentally pushed the button to engage the 4-wheel-drive-LOW while dusting my dash and all it needed was to be put back into 2-wheel-drive. We felt a tad bit embarrassed by that one.

This past weekend was our latest escapade. After coming down with a yucky head cold last Thursday and skipping my regular grocery shopping trip, I was finally willing to venture out by early Saturday evening and Mum said she'd come along. She offered to drive to my house to meet me but I said I'd meet her at the school halfway between our houses, only to forget my cell phone and have to drive back to my house with Mum along anyway.

Once at the Walmart Superstore in Woodburn (a much better option than Winco on a Saturday night) we started out with non-food items... and were quickly distracted by all the Christmas stuff out, wasting a good hour or so going back and forth between departments to check out whatever gift idea came to our heads. Just when we were ready to head to the food section and actually grocery shop, what would happen but the store would catch on fire and we would have to be evacuated.

NO JOKE.

So we did what any normal mother/daughter pair would do... stood outside and took 20+ self-portraits with the action in the background for instagram.

We quickly learned it was a very small fire in the back and that hopefully the store could reopen so instead of bailing (we'd driven half an hour and I really didn't want to make another trip), we headed to the car to take ourselves off to Taco Bell for some Cinnabon Delights.

Which is how I discovered I'd left the headlights on in my car.

How providential! That could have been a close one!

After our dessert run we came back to Walmart and just waited in our car. FOR AN HOUR. And that's how our early evening trip turned into a late evening trip, made even later by the fact that when we were finally finished shopping we drove all the way back to my house and parked and turned off the car before remembering Mum's car was at the school.

Like I said, Laurel and Hardy, us two.

(Love you, Mum ;)