Inevitability

Mace attended two days of preschool last week, so of course by Friday night he had a runny nose. So of course by today (Sunday) I had a sore throat and everyone in the house, except Joe, started sneezing.

But Joe has his own set of problems -- he can't really stand up straight. Last week sometime he lifted Mace above his head to throw a basketball in the hoop and wrenched his back somehow. By yesterday he was walking around the house like a 95 year old man -- when he was able to walk, that is.

In spite of the bad back, I asked Joe to come with me to register Casey for flag football. He didn't really feel like coming, but I told him that I would probably be the only mom there registering her kid and I think that did the trick. After we registered Casey, we went to the mall to get him some non-metal cleats. We found the cheapest pair they had at Dick's Sporting Goods and picked up a couple of pairs of shorts and two youth-sized footballs so the boys could each have one -- and don't forget the pair of socks we had to buy because Casey wasn't wearing any (I couldn't convince him to wear the little nylon hose footies they have in the box). At the checkout, I got distracted from what was happening at the register because I was watching Joe back up against a wall and slowly, slowly bend over. He was unabashedly groaning and I was a little afraid he wouldn't be able to stand back up or would just tip over onto the top of his head from that position. So it wasn't until we were halfway back down the mall that I started adding things up in my head and realized that the guy hadn't charged us for the shoes. I went back to pay for them and he was so grateful he gave me 50% off the shoes. Isn't that awesome? Honesty does pay sometimes! I was so excited to be able to share this life lesson with Casey, but when I told him he looked at me like I had three heads and then said, "We got chocolate milk while you were gone!" I suppose I should have taken him back into the store with me instead of leaving him with Joe, but Mace isn't strong enough yet to catch Joe if he starts toppling over.

Joe seems to be moving around a little bit better today, but is still making plans for when he'll start receiving his disability checks. I'm anticipating he'll make a full recovery and then promptly start sneezing.