it finally happened. all of the deadlines that i set for myself to protect me from THE DEADLINE came and went. i left the house sunday morning with barely enough time to get to the church. a trail of index cards and commentaries followed. i would have to finish the sermon (sure to be my all time worst) in the car.

andy drove while i scribbled illegible notes and envisioned myself lost in translation as i cowered behind the pulpit. concentration was elusive as i began to remember, in great detail, the host of things i had forgotten: the scripture reading, shoes, my robe… PANTS! 

andy was on the cell phone attempting to borrow a robe from a colleague when he made the snap decision to take an off-road shortcut. a rocky embankment prohibited us from driving the rest of the way, so the two of us scaled the jagged surface (leaving yet another trail of index cards and commentaries). i had picked the wrong day to go barefoot but if we hurried, there would still time be to make it for my part.

a scary yard dawg and a nagging home owner with a “no tresspassing policy” sent the two of us and my dwindling preaching paraphanalia back to the car, where we peeled out, backtracked, drove slowly through traffic toward the church, and tuned in to the service broadcast on AM radio station 600.

who knew that unspoken anxiety and anger could be transmitted over radio waves? andy and i listened as the congregation organized an impromptu hymn sing while they waited for me. we were stopped at a broken red light. i realized i still had on my pajama top. i had forgotten to brush my teeth.

and then i did what i should have done in the very beginning. i forced myself to wake up. i told the whole dream that it could take its flying index cards and commentaries and board a plane to timbuktu. i packaged up my anxieties over the forgotten robe, shoes, and scripture reading, along with that nagging neighbor and her yard dawg, and i shoved them all off of the rocky embankment.

but as i lay awake in bed, i could not seem to tune out the sounds of AM radio station 600, which was taking a break from regularly scheduled nightmares for a little public service announcement:

the “transportation parade” at the monkey’s school would be taking place in less than five hours. “have you decorated your son’s big wheel?” the announcer chided.

no. clearly i hadn’t decorated the damn big wheel. many thanks to my subconscious for pointing out the error of my ways. and what does it say about me that i just had a full-blown anxiety nightmare over a four-year-old’s school transportation parade?   

now… does anybody know where i can get balloons and streamers at 6:12 in the morning?