The Best Laid Plans . . .
Okay, before someone starts yelling at me again, I figured I'd better do a new blog post. I'm so bad about keeping this blog up to date (and I truly apologize for that), but my problem is trying to find something to write about that won't bore all of you into an unscheduled nap.
I'm sure you're all familiar with the saying that I started in the title of this blog post -- the best laid plans of mice and men do oft' times go astray. Well, in my circle of friends, we refer to those times as "Bertie moments." These are named for the heroine in my friend Dolores J Wilson's trilogy about Bertie Byrd, a tow truck driver who resides in a small Georgia town filled with people who intentionally or unintentionally turn her life to chaos on a daily basis.
It seems, since the advent of Dolores' books, my life has been filled with more than its share of "Bertie moments." Then again, perhaps they were there all the time, and I'm just more aware of them than before. Either way, I seem to be the center of chaotic events not of my making. For instance, in one day it took me almost 30 minutes to cash a check for $16.95 at my bank because a new teller could not get the concept that I was both Marge Smith and Elizabeth Sinclair. While she was trying to ascertain my true identity(after all $16.95 is a critically large amount), despite being told repeatedly that Elizabeth Sinclair is my pseudonym, an elderly lady drove in next to me at the drive-in teller. Upon hearing the sound of crunching metal, I turned to find she'd managed to wedge her car between the cement post, supposedly put there to keep people from doing this, and the machine that carries the deposits, etc to the teller two lanes over. It took four men about fifteen minutes to unstick her while she sat in her car and sobbed. My heart went out to her as she lived through her own "Bertie moment."
Following this adventure at the bank, and while waiting in a checkout line at the supermarket, a mother in front of me gave her 18 month old child a JAR of pickles to keep the little tyke happy while she loaded her groceries on the conveyor belt. Now, having raised three kids to adulthood, I knew immediately that this was NOT a good idea and one that could and did end in disaster. Yep. You saw it coming, too, right? Those little hands just couldn't hold onto that jar. It hit the floor with a resounding crash, and I was bathed in macerated pickles and brine. Needless to say, vinegar is not a scent I would have chosen to enhance my presence for the rest of the day.
"Bertie moments." Moments that are not perpetuated by you, but which have a way of gathering you into their arms and including you in the disastrous results.
But I digress.
So you don't think that I'm laying the blame at the feet of everyone else, I also have "Bertie moments" totally of my own making. One such moment happened recently while a friend and I made plans to attend a writers' conference on St Simons Island. Since she lives in the central part of the state, and I live closer to the coast, the plan was for her to drive to a mutual friend's house, leave her car and ride with me. The friend gave her explicit instructions on where to hide her car keys so that the friend's son could find them and move the car into the garage. It was an ingenius plan that left no room for error. Right? Wrong! You're forgetting the "Bertie moment."
I arrived shortly after she did, we hid the keys in the designated spot and moved her luggage into my car. As we drove down my friend's driveway, I spotted a young man working in the driveway with a leaf blower, and I assumed he was the friend's son (I hadn't seen him in a long time and wasn't sure what he looked like). As the old saying goes assuming makes an ass out of u and me, and I proceeded to prove it right.
I rolled down my window and yelled to the young man that we had hidden the keys on the electrical box as instructed so he could find them. He then informed me that he was NOT my friend's son. He was just there doing yard work. At which time there was nothing left for me to do but turn to my passenger and say "Well, if he wants to steal your car, he'll know where the keys are."
"Bertie moment."
Although while the "Bertie moments" are happening, you want to crawl into a hole and pull it in after you, in retrospect, they do bring a smile. And, after all, if I didn't have my brushes with these moments, Dolores wouldn't have much fodder (other than her own abundance of "Bertie moments") to fill her books.
COMMERCIAL BREAK: If you haven't already read them, and you're looking for a LOL read, check out Dolores' Bertie books at www.doloresjwilson.com How can you pass up books with titles like BARKING GOATS AND THE REDNECK MAFIA, BIG HAIR AND FLYING COWS and JAIL BERTIE AND THE PEANUT LADIES?
Have a great day, everyone, and may you have few "Bertie moments" coloring your life.
Blessings,
Elizabeth Sinclair
I'm sure you're all familiar with the saying that I started in the title of this blog post -- the best laid plans of mice and men do oft' times go astray. Well, in my circle of friends, we refer to those times as "Bertie moments." These are named for the heroine in my friend Dolores J Wilson's trilogy about Bertie Byrd, a tow truck driver who resides in a small Georgia town filled with people who intentionally or unintentionally turn her life to chaos on a daily basis.
It seems, since the advent of Dolores' books, my life has been filled with more than its share of "Bertie moments." Then again, perhaps they were there all the time, and I'm just more aware of them than before. Either way, I seem to be the center of chaotic events not of my making. For instance, in one day it took me almost 30 minutes to cash a check for $16.95 at my bank because a new teller could not get the concept that I was both Marge Smith and Elizabeth Sinclair. While she was trying to ascertain my true identity(after all $16.95 is a critically large amount), despite being told repeatedly that Elizabeth Sinclair is my pseudonym, an elderly lady drove in next to me at the drive-in teller. Upon hearing the sound of crunching metal, I turned to find she'd managed to wedge her car between the cement post, supposedly put there to keep people from doing this, and the machine that carries the deposits, etc to the teller two lanes over. It took four men about fifteen minutes to unstick her while she sat in her car and sobbed. My heart went out to her as she lived through her own "Bertie moment."
Following this adventure at the bank, and while waiting in a checkout line at the supermarket, a mother in front of me gave her 18 month old child a JAR of pickles to keep the little tyke happy while she loaded her groceries on the conveyor belt. Now, having raised three kids to adulthood, I knew immediately that this was NOT a good idea and one that could and did end in disaster. Yep. You saw it coming, too, right? Those little hands just couldn't hold onto that jar. It hit the floor with a resounding crash, and I was bathed in macerated pickles and brine. Needless to say, vinegar is not a scent I would have chosen to enhance my presence for the rest of the day.
"Bertie moments." Moments that are not perpetuated by you, but which have a way of gathering you into their arms and including you in the disastrous results.
But I digress.
So you don't think that I'm laying the blame at the feet of everyone else, I also have "Bertie moments" totally of my own making. One such moment happened recently while a friend and I made plans to attend a writers' conference on St Simons Island. Since she lives in the central part of the state, and I live closer to the coast, the plan was for her to drive to a mutual friend's house, leave her car and ride with me. The friend gave her explicit instructions on where to hide her car keys so that the friend's son could find them and move the car into the garage. It was an ingenius plan that left no room for error. Right? Wrong! You're forgetting the "Bertie moment."
I arrived shortly after she did, we hid the keys in the designated spot and moved her luggage into my car. As we drove down my friend's driveway, I spotted a young man working in the driveway with a leaf blower, and I assumed he was the friend's son (I hadn't seen him in a long time and wasn't sure what he looked like). As the old saying goes assuming makes an ass out of u and me, and I proceeded to prove it right.
I rolled down my window and yelled to the young man that we had hidden the keys on the electrical box as instructed so he could find them. He then informed me that he was NOT my friend's son. He was just there doing yard work. At which time there was nothing left for me to do but turn to my passenger and say "Well, if he wants to steal your car, he'll know where the keys are."
"Bertie moment."
Although while the "Bertie moments" are happening, you want to crawl into a hole and pull it in after you, in retrospect, they do bring a smile. And, after all, if I didn't have my brushes with these moments, Dolores wouldn't have much fodder (other than her own abundance of "Bertie moments") to fill her books.
COMMERCIAL BREAK: If you haven't already read them, and you're looking for a LOL read, check out Dolores' Bertie books at www.doloresjwilson.com How can you pass up books with titles like BARKING GOATS AND THE REDNECK MAFIA, BIG HAIR AND FLYING COWS and JAIL BERTIE AND THE PEANUT LADIES?
Have a great day, everyone, and may you have few "Bertie moments" coloring your life.
Blessings,
Elizabeth Sinclair
posted by Elizabeth Sinclair at
11:35 AM
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