Life Changes

Curse of the Sock Monkeys

As I rolled out of bed, it was already almost 9 in the morning. I glanced at my phone and saw a message from Dalton. I quickly respond to his 'Good Morning' and grab my stuff to shower.

Once I'm finished bathing, which takes longer than it should because I always sing in the shower. And daydream in the shower. But who doesn't, it's so easy to relax. I quickly pull my hair into a bun without drying.

As I get dressed, I try to adjust my bra so that my shirt covers it without covering too much.

As I'm quickly putting on makeup, that is extremely minimal, I receive a photo from Dalton. I respond with a photo of my own. My make up consists of just mascara, eyeshadow on my eyebrows, and highlight. I'm not in the mood to unpack my makeup again. So I use the makeup my sister dropped off for me last night.

As I'm finishing up, my mother enters the bathroom to begin getting ready. As she gets in the shower, I go sit in the dining room waiting for her.

Today we are going to go try to get photos with as many sock monkeys as we can. My city has sock monkeys all around the city. Som are private, others are public.

Once my mom is finished in the shower. We head out to the car and to find the first of the sock monkeys.

As we pass were it is said to be, the building is closed.

"The list is older so some of them may have moved. Also, a lot of them are in office buildings so it probably isn't likely to see them," my mom says as she heads to the second monkey on the list.

As we arrive at the building, she parks at the closest spot near the building.

I quickly hop out of the car. As I hop out, I feel my foot slip. Vomit. Awesome. Who the hell vomits at 9 in the morning on a Saturday.

"Just fucking awesome."

As my mom laughs her ass off about this and takes photos, I try to clean my shoe off and head over to the monkey. Once my mother joins me, she takes the picture and we continue our adventure. We spent hours trying to find the monkeys and only got pictures of three. We tried at the airport but the sock monkey was gone and instead there was a giant dinosaur. The next memorable moment was when my mom got trapped in the legion parking lot while turning around.

Next, we went to the local university. There is a monkey inside of the teachers building. The only issue is it's registration day at the university. And football practice also happens to be going on right now, therefore, Dalton is here. Not really down to get caught somewhere I shouldn't be.

As my mother pulls up to the building I'm talking her to forget it and leave.

"Just go try the door. If it's open go take a quick selfie and come out, I'll stay here."

"Fine," I sigh as I quickly jump out of the car and run to the building.

Surprisingly, the door is unlocked. As I quickly step in, I hear voices and quickly take a selfie with the monkey and run to the door. As I reach the door it begins to open.

I swear, at this point, my heart is on the floor and my stomach is in my throat.

The person opening the door is my mother of all people.

"Quick, go stand by it."

I quickly stand by it and she takes a picture.

"Okay, let's go," I say as I run out the door, and back to the car.

As we get in, she heads to the place where four of the sock monkeys are. The one I am most excited for, the Cheap Trick monkey. Cheap Trick is from the town I am from.  As we get there,  my mother asks me to get her purse so that se can pay for the entry charge.

"No, it's okay, I don't need pictures with all of them. The one that is free is fine."

"Are you sure?" She asks as I am already out of the car.

"Yeah."

As I sit down on the monkey, I let out a Yelp. This fucking thing is out as hell.

As she gets the picture we get back in te car and head home.

"Dad made tuna so that you can have your tuna croissant sandwiches."

Once we get home, I grab the thank you cards that I have been intending to send too a few of the people I met in Michigan recently at a conference for my exchange.

As I finish my mother brings me a sandwich. I eat quickly and put the cards in her purse.

Once I do that, I go and lay down.

A few hours later, my mother knocks on my door.

"Come out to the dining room."

As I go sit down next to her desk, she disappears. She comes back with my father.

"For dinner, what do you want? We are going to go out," my father says.

"I don't care," I say shrugging.

My mom begins looking up restaurants and we decide to go to a local Mexican restaurant.

Once we are there, my mother chooses a booth so that hopefully we don't have another incident like the last time we were here.

This however doesn't work. Once again, another glass of water is spilled. The issue this time is that before the floor is dried, a waitress goes walking through the wet and slips with her hands full. She grabs my arm on the way down, leaving a wonderful bruise of a handprint. Also breaking two bowls full of salsa and dropping two baskets of tortilla chips.

Other than that, the night went pretty well. Once to meal was over we went back home.

My mother and I were up until maybe one doing paperwork when I went to bed. She, however stayed up until almost four making sure I had everything.