By show of hands...

Has this ever happened to you?



A friend on Facebook posted that picture, asking that same question.

Several folks responded, with their own stories or ones they'd overheard.  One even acknowledged that it was surprising it had never happened to them, given that they had 13 kids.  (I winced when I read that.  Ow.)

I've never been left behind by my folks.  However, Hubby wasn't so lucky.

Now, there's a few key things to be aware of here.  One, Hubby refers to himself as the "What do you mean, you're pregnant?" baby.  He freely admits he was trying to be prevented, and has also called himself the Defective Latex Poster Child for his year of birth.  He came along 9 years after his parents thought they were done.  His oldest sister is 12 years his senior, the next sister is 11 years his senior, and his only brother is 9 years older.

Two, the town Hubby grew up in can best be described as...well...HeeHaw would have saluted this towns 1017 residents.  (It's closer to 1200ish in population now, which is still only about a fifth the size of the town where we live now.)  There's ONE traffic light.  They got rid of the blinking yellow by the school years ago.  It didn't get a McDonald's until 1994.  It fulfilled the definition of a small town that I read in Reader's Digest moons ago: a place where everyone knows whose check is good and whose husband isn't.

Now, when Hubby was about five (which would make sister #2, Lou, about 16), his mom, Lou, and he went out to their church during the middle of the week for some reason.  I forget what, exactly.  While Mom and Lou worked or did whatever, Hubby happily played in the church nursery.  After awhile, he came out of the nursery to look for them.  They weren't there.  He found the pastor's wife instead, and asked if she'd seen his mom.  Mrs. H, the pastor's wife, told him that his mom and sister had left several minutes before.  She drove him home.

So, since I didn't have a story of my own to share, I shared Hubby's.

And then I told him about the post my friend Jan had made, shared some of the stories with him, and he proceeded to tell me that history had very nearly repeated itself.

Last Saturday, Hubby took the Fries with him to praise team practice, since I had come unglued at the thought of having to survive another morning on my own.  He'd only just gotten home Friday night.  And since I was shaking and crying at the thought of Saturday morning without him, he kindly took the girls (ages 7, 6, and 6) with him so that I didn't end up checked into a room with rubber wallpaper.

Let me explain a bit about our church.  It's been here in this town since...oh...well, around the turn of the century.  The 20th century.  It's been at its current location in town since some time in the early 1920s or '30s, I think.  The current sanctuary was built in 1959.  More space was just added on when it was needed.  It took most of the first year that we were there for me to figure out the layout of the church.  There's no real obvious "front entrance."  It's one really old building that's had more and more and more added onto it, so that now it seems to not have much rhyme or reason.  It's a great place to play Sardines.

And a great place for three little girls to whoop and holler and giggle and run around.

Which, naturally, is what they did after Hubby had wrapped up practice and was finishing a few final things before leaving for home.

Finally, when he was just about ready, and all the Fries were actually in the sanctuary, he hollered at them to go get into the van.

They scampered off.

Hubby was, he said, about sixty seconds behind them.  Plenty of time for them to get to the van, get in (bless those powered doors), get buckled, and be ready when he got to the van.

And that's exactly what he expected.  Since the Fries can operate the van's sliding doors themselves, he thought nothing of the fact that both doors were closed when he got in the van.  He buckled up, started the van, and shifted into drive before asking, "Is everybody buckled?"

Silence.

He looked in the back...and discovered he was alone.

I am happy to report that he did come home with the children, so it's not like they were actually left behind.

Almost, though.

Almost.

Yes, I'm still chuckling at him.