Mind the Gap!

I’ve gotten in the habit of not writing an update unless I have something in particular to report. There are only so many times that you can read about daily life and find it interesting… and lately we’ve been so busy that things out of the ordinary have seemed to come few and far between.

BUT… that was until this past Thursday. I now have an adventure to report!

We have our professional staff meeting on Thursday mornings and this was a lucky week – we were able to go out to lunch afterward! I love these lunches, mainly because I really like the people I work with, and it’s also a privilege that Isaiah and I are able to bring the girls with us on most occasions.

I’m pretty sure that the privilege may be revoked after this week’s episode.

Lunch itself went well, we ate at a little Chinese restaurant where the owner knows everybody and everybody knows the owner. The décor is not fancy, but the food is yummy.

Mia and Maggie were behaving pretty well. We took a few trips to see the fish in the fish tank, a trip to the potty, inspected everyone else in the restaurant (Mia’s now at the point where she categorizes people. “Mommy,” she’ll whisper, “is that man fat?” “Yes, “ I whisper back, “but don’t say that out loud!”). Most everyone in our group was finished eating and I let Mia and Maggie circle the table, harassing my co-workers with abandon while I finished my food as quickly as possible (being the slowest eater in the world is typically not one of my features that is brag-worthy.)

I was listening to the conversation and vaguely aware that Maggie was scratching at the wall behind me but I had not noticed that when my boss pulled out the university credit card to pay for the meal Maggie, with her eagle eyes and lightening fast reflexes, has snagged the card and was gleefully running it through the grooves in the wooden paneling behind me.

Through the haze of food consumption, I heard my boss ask, “Hey, Maggie, where’s the credit card?” My haze quickly disappeared when I saw Maggie grin widely and say, “Da wall!”

What?!

I asked Maggie again where the credit card was and she happily walked over the wall where there was a tiny, tiny crack in the wooden paneling and said, “Da Wall!”

You’ve probably seen this kind of paneling all over, the thin sheet of wood that goes about halfway up the wall and is anchored by a baseboard on the bottom and another finished piece of wood on the top. I’d never really examined it until Thursday, and I’m still not sure how there was a crack at all, but sure enough, there was a crack just large enough to slide a credit card behind the paneling and trap it in the wall.

At first we all laughed. I began to pry the crack apart, trying to locate the credit card but stopped when I realized that if I pushed too hard it was likely that I was going to break the entire piece of paneling and I was pretty certain that the owners of the Szechuan wouldn’t appreciate that little leftover.

My colleagues Mike and Darci, the ones without children, stopped laughing and thanking their lucky stars that they aren’t parents and stepped in to help. Darci requested a knife, which I happily got from a server, and leaned down to inspect the situation.

In a scene eerily familiar to Mia’s “credit carding” incident last year, Maggie saw the skin exposed by Darci’s squatting position and darted in with her hands to explore. Darci squealed a little, but I was able to grab Maggie’s hands before they did a full exploration of her backside. There are still small blessings in life.

I watched in mortification as they performed surgery on the wall and took pictures of the incident with their iPhones. Then I heard something that made the affair even more exciting.

Last week my boss’s wallet was stolen and he had to get everything replaced. He had gotten the university credit card back that morning. And was going to use it for the first time during lunch. Fantastic.

I crept out to my car and pulled out money to cover lunch, then arrived back on the scene to find that the owner had enlisted the help of the other restaurant staff members and a shop vac. There was also a skewer present. Mia and Maggie were hopping about, trying to get a front row seat on the action, while I just handed over the money and died, little by little.

Another of my colleagues nabbed Maggie and tried to make sure she didn’t have the credit card in her pockets, her pull-up or her mouth (did I mention she has an oral fixation?). We looked under the chairs and lifted the tablecloth to see if it could possibly be anywhere else. The whole time Maggie just smiled happily, pointed, and said, “Da wall!” I hate it that she’s honest. Not really. But… why the wall?! Why?!

We had Maggie’s 2-year-old doctors appointment right then and had to leave. Actually, the whole staff left, the owner of the restaurant assuring my boss that they would keep working on it and call him with the results.

When the doctor asked me about Maggie’s mobility and if I had any concerns I got to tell him the story as well. He was suitably appalled. He also told me that she’s healthy enough to live a little longer.

But when I called my husband to tell him about his youngest’s latest adventure he already knew about it – my co-workers had called and Twittered about the adventure already! Darn that Twitter!

The end of the story is that several hours later I got a phone call from my boss. The owner, using Asian ingenuity, the skewer, and duct tape, had recovered the card from the wall. Unbelievable, but true. She also told my boss to be nice to me. He responded that he didn’t need to worry about that, as I was already fired.

He has recanted, I still have a job, the university has a credit card, and Maggie is still in possession of her life.

So… until the next installment… take care!