I Live in a Factory

Last week was a rough one. Our homeschool was just two weeks into the back to school torture, ahem, routine that occurs every September and already I found myself out of patience, out of energy, and out of gas…literally.  Turning the ignition key of my car early one morning as my kids loaded their backpacks for our once-a-week co-op, I glanced at the dashboard and saw the following sad sight:EMPTY… Beyond empty….Well beyond empty….Empty, as in no gas left.  Empty, as in you are goin’ nowhere fast sister. Empty, as in yes, you need to sheepishly creep up the stairs and ask your freshly showered hubby to attempt to locate some gas in the garage and fill it up.   A funny thing happened, though.  Instead of the reaction I was expecting from my husband (think something akin to complete exasperation plus a dash of “How many times have I told you…” thrown in for good measure), what I received was a cheerful “I’ll be right there” followed by my knight in shining armor track shorts filling up my car without a word of complaint.  No snarky remarks, no “I warned you”, no sarcasm, no nothing.  Just kindness and love.  I have to be honest – I was a little bit shocked.  Not that my husband is some sort of an ogre.  He most certainly is not.  It is just that this was not my first go-around with the empty gas thing, and I fully expected to be reminded of that.  His “lack of exasperation” left me a little bewildered – until one of my fellow co-op Moms suggested that maybe he was aiming for a holy reaction – instead of a fleshy one.  The gas thing wasn’t the only drama that last week brought.  There was the sibling squabble that landed my kids separated and in their rooms for four hours.