Thursday, January 17, 2008

A Funny -- Poor Bob

This morning as I was getting ready to shove Bob out the door off to work -- no, say goodbye as Bob was leaving for work, he decided instead to take the day off. He has three vacation days that he has to burn in a hurry, so he figured why not. This was at 7 am.

Bob parked himself in front of the computer as Thomas and I fed the puppies and took them outside. We then started school. It's hard to do school with Bob underfoot -- not because he's here, it just ruins our routine. So we plugged away.

About 10:30 we took our first break, took the puppies outside, and I came down to catch up on emails and blogs and all that fun and good computer stuff. A half hour later, I startled because so much time had flown by. Up the stairs I went. Thomas sat down at the table and started math while I decided to make another pot of coffee.

I was looking out my kitchen window and the overcast, cold and dreary day. I then looked at Bob's van, which was parked in the driveway. I blinked a few times. I actually put my glasses on. Lo and behold, there was exhaust coming out of it! It was 11 am and that van was RUNNING.

I called down to Bob, who was diligently working on defragging and deleting unwanted files from his computer and asked him if he forgot something. Nope. I started laughing. I just couldn't help it. I said, "Honey, did you start your car this morning?"

Oh shiitake mushrooms. Only he didn't say the mushroom part. Or the "ake" part, either. He flew out the door faster than I could say boo.

So there in our driveway, from 7 am to 11 am, sat our van, with the engine running, warming up. We're trying to figure out how many gallons of gas he blew. It was just so funny that I didn't care about the lost gas, though. I don't think I've laughed so hard in many, many moons.

Poor Bob. I'm laughing at him, not with him. However, he was a good sport and laughed about it, too.

And I'm proud to say that even though Bob was underfoot, as soon as Thomas finishes his five-paragraph essay on his favorite foods (or poop, whichever he chooses to write about today) we will be done with school for the day. We made it through.

7 comments:

Heather said...

I know what you mean about having Dad around during a school day. I think with me, it's mostly because when he's here I'm "mothering" him too in a way - tending to his needs, short affectionate pitstops, including him in conversations, etc. When he's gone, I just focus on the kids and our schoolwork/housework. Having him here during the day makes me feel like I can't focus on what needs to get done.

I've actually forgotten the car running in the driveway before, although not for four hours. That's too funny!

Gerkin Pickle said...

LOL...too funny!

I agree, it is hard doing school with dad around. It just throws us off somehow.

I go and start Cools car each morning...you are lucky he starts his own! ;-)

Gerky
http://wickedpickles.weebly.com

Meg_L said...

LOL - I can just see the car idling away.

And I also agree about trying to do school with Hubby around. That's one reason we match our breaks to his.

Elisheva Hannah Levin said...

Now, that's funny! And for Bob, I imagine if he wasn't laughing, he'd be crying.

Sometimes you just have to laugh though, and enjoy it!

Bruce has a 9-80 schedule, he works 80 hours in 9 days, which means that he takes every other Friday off. Since we are unschoolers, we just tend to do different learning on those Fridays, because our usual stuff just gets blown to bits by Bruce's plans.

Bonni said...

Oh, that is funny! I'd still be giggling...every time I looked at Bob. Sorry Bob!

What a good job you guys did to stick to the plan even though Bob was home. When my DH comes home, the kids revert immediately to Weekend Mode. Sometimes, particularly when we're making some great schoolish headway, I get all anxious that Brian will come home early and the kids will lose focus. So on Fridays, when that is most likely to happen, if I need the kids to be schoolish, we try to get it out of the way early in the day. Just in case...

dlyn said...

too funny! once after my husband went out to start his truck, I saw it go sailing magestically across the yard and plop over the bank into the creek - that will get your day going in a hurry!

Garden State Kate said...

LOL, I'm glad you were able to laugh
about it!