7 Quick Takes about Unusual Ways to Carry Your Stuff to School, Family Pictures, and Fun Times on the Freeway

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?

—1—

How was your Thanksgiving? If you haven't yet, I hope you go to the Unremarkable Files Facebook page and share a picture of your dinner table. 

I didn't even get a photo of our whole table this year, only my favorite dish (THE HOMEMADE STUFFING) and even that was taken after we'd already starting eating it. And as for the pie... there are no pictures of that at all because we were so excited to get it in our faces.

I suggested we go around the table and go through the alphabet, naming something we're thankful for starting with each letter. Somewhere around 'r' it devolved into a conversation between my 15- and 17-year-old about which Avenger they'd be friends with in real life.

"But she'd only be your friend if you were also an Avenger," my 15-year-old argued. (I can't remember who they were talking about because I don't know the movies.)

"So I'd join the Avengers," the other replied.

"What would your superpower be?"

"Puns," the 17-year-old said decisively.

And it's true: she's amazing at cracking puns on any subject, at any time. It practically is her superpower. The caliber of her dad jokes puts her actual dad to shame. 

So I asked what her superhero name would be and I kid you not, she thought about it for less than two seconds and answered, "Quipsilver."

There's a national pun-off in Texas every year, and this girl would slay if she entered it.

—2—

Before they went on break for Thanksgiving, my kids had spirit week at school. There were the obligatory "pajama day" and "crazy hair day," but there was also "anything but a backpack day" which was a new one I'd never heard of before.

At pickup that afternoon, I saw a girl waiting at the curb with belongings strapped to her back in a garbage bag. My son reported that two kids in his grade transported their things through the school in a shopping cart and a microwave.

My high schoolers were really jealous that they didn't have the option of "anything but a backpack day." Maybe they're just afraid to give that much power to high schoolers, but I know they'd be into it.

—3—

My 10-year-old has been complaining about her vision for a while, but our eye office is really backed up. She waited for months (wailing the whole time about how she can't see,) and then a few days before the appointment we had to cancel it because she was in quarantine for a possible COVID exposure. 

After she tested negative, we gave up on our office and made an appointment at a new one that could get her in sooner:

She's so excited to join the ranks of glasses-wearers who know that trees actually have distinct, individual leaves.

The strange thing is that her 17-year-old sister already has glasses, and her 13-year-old brother probably will at some point (he says his vision isn't bad enough yet), but Phillip and I are 40 and neither one of us wears glasses. Isn't there supposed to be some genetic component?

—4—

Every few years, we take family pictures for Christmas cards. I can't believe how far in advance I used to get things together.

In 2017, I not only assembled a color palette of 8 different coordinating outfits for our entire family the week before, but I picked out two different ones, took photos of each, and asked my readers to vote on which one we should wear.

This time, an hour before we were supposed to leave I was yelling instructions at the older kids to go through everyone's closet and find stuff while I was busy cutting the 13-year-old's hair wiry hair (when it gets long, he looks like an anime character in real life.)

—5—

After pictures, Phillip took the kids home and I stayed to order cards. It wasn't until I got in his car afterward that I remembered his spare tire was on (we both got flat tires in our cars this week, what are the odds?)

You're not supposed to drive fast on the spare, and I didn't have my phone on me for back roads directions, so my only choice was driving fifteen miles home on the freeway going 45 MPH.

To the credit of humankind, I only got one honk. But at least honkers, I understand. What I really don't get is the people who pull up behind you, slow way down, and patiently drive behind you going twenty miles under the speed limit for a really long time. 

"I'm sorry I'm going so slow!" I kept trying to mentally tell them. "I have a reason, but it has nothing to do with you! Just go around me!"

—6—

We've accumulated an impressive collection of construction debris after ten years of various home improvement projects, and I finally got Phillip to agree to a dumpster bag.

So I bought the bag, but now the trick is to find the right Saturday when we've got time to fill it up. Until then, the dumpster bag is neatly folded but sitting in our garage on top of a heap of some old plywood, looking suspiciously like the junk I wanted to get rid of in the first place.

The irony that our dumpster bag has itself become clutter is not lost on me.

—7—

I wish everyone the best Thanksgiving weekend! I hope you spend it doing whatever the heck you want to do.

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