A Found Memory by Nancy L. Eady

As I mentioned in my last post, the plan was to move this month. The plan worked. I will not be executing a similar plan in the foreseeable future. 

We started moving in our new house Saturday. We can now walk in our bedroom, find clothes for work during the week, walk in the great room and the kitchen and the bathrooms, which is great progress. I have not yet found the cord for the family laptop, which made writing this post challenging, but I’m sure we’ll find it soon. 

One of the heroes of this move was my daughter, Kayla. She’s a young adult now, and she worked incredibly hard. She helped with packing, cleaning, moving stuff out of one house, moving stuff into the other house, and unpacking. Plus, she has taken on the task of walking all three dogs as they need it until we get our fence. Currently the waiting list for the fence is four weeks.  

But I was looking through some old notes, and found the following anecdote from when she was fourteen. Times have certainly changed! Here is the story, as told the night after it happened: 

Things got a little tense at our household this morning thanks to contacts and baseball, strange combination that it is.

Kayla got contacts about a month ago and after the first three days, which were rough, had most of the kinks worked out – until this morning.  I knocked on her bedroom door to tell her I was going to take a shower, so wanted to tell her good-bye in advance.  In return, I got screamed at    yelled at  was informed tersely that her contacts were just “not working” this morning and she was afraid she was going to miss the bus. [How something with no moving parts or motor can “not work” is beyond me.]

When I told her she had nine minutes left and she should calm down a little, I threw a spark onto a pile of dry twigs and leaves.  I am not saying I slammed any doors over the conversation —but I slammed my bedroom door over the conversation.

However, as we all know, Karma works its magic at the worst (or best) possible times.

Fifteen minutes after the bus came, Kayla texted.  She had forgotten her permission slip for the baseball game field trip her class was taking today, and would I please bring it to her at school so she wouldn’t have to sit in the boring classroom all day long and my husband and I lose the twenty dollars we had plunked down for the field trip?  [I’m sure it was our losing the twenty dollars that was worrying her the most.] [Insert sarcasm font.]

I contemplated telling her “No.”  I should have told her “No.”  I almost texted “No.” But instead I clenched my jaw and started looking for it.  Once I found it, the following text exchange ensued:

ME:  Leaving house now.  Please be at front at drop-off line to pick up form.  Do NOT make me park and come inside. 

KAYLA:  I can’t do that. It’s against the rules.

[At which point, I had grounds for justifiable homicide.]

ME:  Then how the ^&*&%$%(*&^ do you expect me to get it to…    [text deletion and rewording interrupted by further communication from Kayla.]

KAYLA:  I’ll try it

ME: [Deletes previous text without sending.]

KAYLA:  Coach Dean said I could come to the car-rider line.

My mood was not improved by the fact that I managed to lose the permission slip three times before I made it into the car to head to the school.  

The smile on her face when she grabbed the form from me, though, made it worth it.

Finding forgotten memories like that are one of the great joys of writing for me. It’s a little snip of serendipity from the past. Have you ever thought of how you might use that type of “found” memory in a mystery setting?