The Twitching Hour(s)

There is a rule in our house that applies only to me.  I am not allowed out unsupervised between the hours of 3 and 5 p.m.  Basically from after school until dinner time.  If I leave the house alone during those hours, odds are I might not come home.  For whatever reason, my hypoglycemia kicks in REALLY hard in the afternoon.  When we had a Fabricland in town, David had been known to call and ask, “Has there been a red-headed woman in your store, staring dazedly at fabrics for the last hour and a half?”  Me, between 3 and 5 p.m. is kind of like me on ‘shrooms.  Colours are very pretty, I want to touch everything and I have no concept of time passing.  Grocery shopping?  Forget about it.  A 1/2 hour shop can take me 4 hours if I enter the No Frills at 3:15 p.m.  “Look!  They have ginger beer now!  This shape feels nice and smooth in my hand.  The bottle is very brown-y”

Every now and again we forget the time and I sneak out before anyone notices.  It’s worse this fall because  David teaches out of town now, and I don’t have a car during the day.  So far I’m managing household errands by riding my bike most places.

This was my Mother’s Day gift a couple of years back.

Except that I can’t do a full-on grocery shop using my little bike basket, so when he gets home from work at 3:30, there’s still shit I need to do that requires bigger than a bike basket and I’ll hop in the car and disappear. David usually sends Rissa to monitor me.  “Make sure your mother comes home.  Take the cell.  If you guys aren’t home in 45 minutes, I’m notifying the authorities.”

Yesterday, I had to get a bunch of stuff at Staples.  Riding my bike up there usually isn’t a hardship, I have a nice white rabbit helmet that makes me pretty freakin’ visible and also adds a certain je ne sais quoi to our small town.  I needed to get a whole whack of rewritable cds and other stuff that would have been weighty and I wouldn’t want all of that bouncing around in my basket (NOT a euphemism), plus, I was a wee bit stoned from the overdose of Tylenol that wasn’t working and when I visualized the trip, this is what I saw:  Horrified bystanders converging upon an ambulance, firetruck and hearse on the bottom of Ontario Street.  “Hey  that delightfully eccentric lady with the rabbit bike helmet got hit by a mack truck when she tried to ride her bike while hopped up on too many Tylenol!  That’s her head over there!”  So instead, I did NOT get on my bike.  See that?  Right there?  I was totally using my brain.  I made an executive decision and didn’t bike while under the influence.  Gold Star for Heather!

You can’t really see, but the inside of the ears are PINK!!!

Which meant that when David got home from work I said, “I’m just going to hop into the car and run to Staples…”

David – eyebrows raised.  “Uh… NO.  You’re not.  You tell me what you need and I’ll go get it.”

My eyebrows scrunched down in a defensive, pouty stance.  “No.  This is my job to do and I can do it myself, you shouldn’t have to babysit me!”

“If only that were true my Love.”

“It’s not your job.”

“I’m afraid it is.”

Eyebrows even lower on my face, gearing up to true petulance tinged with guilt at involving him in my errands and perhaps some tears at my hypoglycemic helplessness. “I… I…“

“Just stop.  I’ll go with you.  We’ll get the stuff.  We’ll come home.  It’ll be fun.”

“Like a date?”
 
“Sure, we can call it a date.”

“Okay then.  Rissa!!!  Daddy and I are going on a date to Staples!!”

And it’s a good thing he WAS with me, because the aisle with all the fancy envelopes?  VERY colourful.