Calm In A Crisis

What a morning - complete with one major inconvenience and another crisis near-miss. First of all, my four-year-old, who aspires to being shot from a cannon one day, lept four feet into the air from the couch and landed...on something. I didn't actually see it happen, but I heard it, all right.

"WOWOWOWYOWOWOW!!!"

She somehow crushed her left foot with that bony little bottom of hers. Her foot looked surprisingly normal, given the circumstances, but still, she refused to bear weight on it.

Not good.

So I planned to jump into the shower so as to be at the doctor's office first thing when it opened - when the near-crisis happened.

My other two daughters were in the bathroom getting ready for school. Wet from their showers and competing to get to carpool first, they were having their usual morning round of roller derby. I was focused on my gimpy daughter when I heard it - the scream that sent the fear of frozen death coursing through my veins.

"I can't find the the HAIR DRIER!!!"

"Well, you're not looking, because..."

Oh, no. Nooooo, no, no, no, no.

They were right!!! I had left it at the YMCA the day before.

Definitely NOT GOOD.

"Oh, crap! Crap, crap, crap!!! It's at the YYYYYYY!!!!! Just brush your hair and GO."

The older girls were happy to skip a step in their morning routine, and besides, wet hair apparently is a status thing in fourth grade, anyway.

But not for me, buddy. I need that ionic power.

I grabbed Jim's arm. "Honey, I've GOT to have that hair drier. Can you stay with Blair while I run and go get it???"

"But the girls haven't left for carpoo.."

"SHUT, it, MAN!!! This is HAIR, I'm talkin'!!!"

I sent the girls out the door, lunch money forgotten, and threw on jeans and a ratty sweatshirt with no bra, makeup, or brushed teeth, and peeled out of my driveway like I was outsmarting Boss Hogg.

SQUEEEEEEAL! I rounded the corner, then another, then another, almost hitting an old man exiting the Y in a conversion van. I didn't care, though - good hair was on the line.

I ran inside through the wrong door, waving away the desk girls, and said a little prayer that my beloved hair drier looked cheap enough to avoid theft. Trampling the water-aerobics ladies who were moving through the locker room door at a speed too slow to detect with the naked eye, I pushed my way inside, and...

There - there it was!!! All silvery-green, glowing like a beacon in the dark wilderness, waiting for my arms to snatch it up into their safety, far, far away from the Jersey lady who spits in the sink, was... my Hair Drier.

"Oh, Baby!" I rushed to it, cradled it to my bosom, and fled 'Backdraft'-style before anyone could question my rightful ownership of this most reliable companion.

I gingerly laid it on the passenger seat, raced home, showered, and ultimately took Blair to the doctor with shiney, manageable hair. We waited a while to see the doctor, naturally, and waited even longer for the x-ray results, but all was well - nothing was broken.

I looked at my apple-cheeked daughter, happy and pain-free, drawing all over the white paper on the doctor's room bed. I said a little prayer of thanks, because this could have been so, so much worse.

I mean, I could have had really, really dull, limp hair.