It’s Going To Be Great

Guess where I am right now. Right this very minute! Go ahead. Guess! Did you guess Starbuck’s? Yes? No? Well that’s where I am. I jumped on the chance to take Sally in for her oil change since we’ll be driving her close to 1400 miles this weekend. There’s a Starbuck’s next door with no laundry, no dishwasher that needs to be loaded, no dog to let out and in and out and i– no, still out, now in. Instead there’s a quiet table with free wifi, a decaf mocha frappuccino (I’m expanding my horizons), and the sounds of smooth and funky jazz playing in the background. It’s truly delightful. I wouldn’t mind if the oil change took two hours or so.

When I got up this morning I loaded up the washing machine before I started the coffee, thinking I’d get the four loads or so done before we leave tomorrow. I always think of laundry as the chore that never ends, which is bad because it then reminds of that stupid “Song That Never Ends” and I’ve had it stuck in my head since about 8:00 this morning. Except the music here made me forget about that song until I just typed it. Great. Anyhoo, I haven’t done a lot of laundry in the last week because Taylor’s been on a tear to get all of his done. I did manage to get some underwear washed the other day – total necessity because it was raining really hard and I didn’t want to run to Target for more. And Wednesday night I managed a load of clothes so I could wear something non-Ugly Betty.

So this morning as I’m looking at all the piles of laundry I thought to myself, “next week I won’t have to share the washer and dryer with Taylor”, and then I realized what I thought! You know, 18-year-olds are gone from home a lot so I don’t know that we’ll notice his absence while he’s at school all that keenly. But it will be in the subtle things. No arguing over who gets to do laundry when (seriously – this is an argument between me and him), cooking only for 3 all the time, nobody else to drive Katie to all the places she needs to go, nobody to go get beer and cigarettes a gallon of milk and bread.

I hope he knows what an inconvenience his going away to college is going to be on me. Except for the laundry part.

Todd’s already in a bit of a funk right now. Me? I’m great. Why? Because, as I said in an earlier post, I live in the happy land of denial. I love road trips and we’re going on a long one tomorrow, complete with a delicious brunch at Cracker Barrel. I mean, really. Who wouldn’t be excited about that!? I haven’t let myself think about Sunday yet. Todd, Katie and I will meet Taylor at the chapel, go to service with him, eat lunch with him, and then leave. Yeah. It’s not even worth thinking about at the moment.

Even when we do leave him there I’m going to think of it as dropping him off at camp for a week. That week will turn into two weeks, into three weeks, etc. It’s going to be great. And I won’t have to share the washer/dryer with him. Yeah. It’s going to be great.