Crisis

Every day this week has featured a crisis. Some pretty big, most small. At what point do you just call the week a wash and pretend it's over? Cause I'm at theoretically AT that point, and it's just Thursday afternoon.

Today's crisis was not immediately taken care of, as I was in a meeting and didn't listen to my friend's message on my voice mail. But when I did, my meeting partner and I rushed to her aid.

She had seen a rat.

Now, it turns out that the rat was in her yard, dead. Her dogs may or may not have killed it. (Good one, pups!) The rat was smallish. And though the day was hot and thus smell-inducing, we arranged quickly for someone to not only come remove the rodent, but to come and bait traps in case he/she had little friends.

Still. A rat is a rat. And we live in a well-appointed (infested) neighborhood and my friend cleans a lot, and it rocked her world. The house reeked of Clorox when we arrived to save her.

But truly: what is really rocking all of us suburban moms' worlds is the start of school. The start of schedules, logistics, juggling, negotiating, fretting, celebrating, shopping, paying, fundraising, emailing, typing, talking, talking, talking, socializing, meeting, driving, driving, driving, and waking (up early). My friend with the rat happened to have just sent her oldest to college, her middle to high school, and her youngest to middle school. IN ONE WEEK. No rat can compete with that horror.

So my meeting partner and I went over and consoled, and remembered the dead rat whilst simultaneously rejoicing in his/her demise. We all said a mantra over a jar of roses (from a perfect neighbor's yard)....to wish our children well, to help us relax and enjoy this wild life, to have rat-free homes, and to thwart the tropical storm currently brewing off the coast of our state.

And then we all left to drive carpool.