Out of touch

I was supposed to cook dinner for DD last night, but he took pity on the exhausted single mum and we went to our favourite Malaysian restaurant instead.

It felt very nice to sit on his couch with a glass of wine and no dogs harassing me to throw balls for them over and over and over again.

I don’t normally get to see the boyf on a Thursday night, but the youngest was having a sleepover at a friend’s house and the eldest was out to dinner with my ex, so I ran away from home for a few hours.

I was a bit stressy about the youngest’s sleepover as it was her first with a friend from her new school. But I’ve met the friend’s dad and he seems like a nice bloke, though a bit heavy on the handshakes.

Have I mentioned this? My brain is so addled at the moment that I can’t remember. I met the dad at a piercing salon while signIng consent forms for our teenagers to get their cartilages pierced (Sigh. Yes, I gave in. But I made her pay for the piercing, I’m only a partial pushover) and he vigorously shook my hand to say hello AND goodbye.

I automatically stuck my hand out the first time he did it, furtively used hand sanitiser afterwards, then wasn’t quite sure how to refuse the second shake without seeming rude.

Anyways, nice bloke, just hadn’t got the COVID no-no memo.

When I dropped the youngest off at the bus stop she was given a long list of things she wasn’t allowed to do: no kissing boys in sand dunes, no drugs, no alcohol, no vaping, no staying out late.

There was also a to-do list that included texting me regularly to let me know she was OK. I threatened her with never being allowed out ever again and that I’d tell her father if she disobeyed me.

She thought I was totally hil-arious. I may have to work on being taken more seriously by my children.

So, it wasn’t really the night for me to accidentally leave my phone at home as I dashed off to DD’s … buuuuuut that’s what I did.

Ack!

Fortunately it’s not the first time it’s happened. And because I know my ex’s phone number by heart (we got our numbers at the same time about 25 years ago and they only differ by a digit) I’d asked him to send the kids’ numbers to DD’s phone last time it happened. So I let the kids know via DD’s phone that I was without mine.

Forgetting my phone also confirmed I would definitely be taking the long route home, despite finally becoming brave enough to use the haunted quickest route – the Wakehurst Parkway – again recently. This was because …

a) When I mentioned the Wakehurst Parkway to my nephew the other day he said “Noooo, don’t drive there at night, there’s a chick that appears in people’s back seats and says “Kill yourself!”

and

b) Not having my phone meant I wouldn’t be able to call for help when the chick appeared in the back seat and told me to kill myself.

When House finally made it home she found her phone and demanded the youngest send a proof of life photo. After receiving it (a pic of IT Chapter 2 on a TV screen) I crashed in bed to catch up on a few of this week’s lost hours of sleep.

Hello Friday, what do you and the weekend have in store for me?

Hope you have a good one.

Song of the day: Blondie “Hanging on the telephone”