“I’ll take this stuff to the car and meet you there,” said David, pushing the Heron’s Key cart loaded with boxes, bags and ice chest out the apartment door. “Here, use my key.”

“Don’t ask,” I said to David when once I deposited a few bagged items, my coffee mug, one house plant, and a small aging dog in various empty Subaru spaces. He didn’t. Dave was fairly sure he would hear about it later but equally certain it was best to let silence accompany our drive from home to boat where the massive stash got transferred from car to dock carts to boat and finally to spaces appropriate for storage. 

This is the story. 

Backdrop: I don’t like leaving home. Once I have left, I’m fine, I’m on my way to what adventure pulled me out but leaving is not my favorite thing. So. . . 

When Dave said, “Looks like you’re about ready. I’ll meet you at the car,” I moved into my “check all rooms for the last time” mode. In the guest room, “Oh darn! There on a guest bed was a stack of clean laundry meant to move back to PineAweigh. No problem, it’s a small stack, I can tuck that under my arm. 

I moved back to the entry realizing by this time I needed to re-warm my coffee, and while I did that I notice that I hadn’t slanted the bedroom blinds. I put down the folded laundry and tended to that task. I retrieved my coffee, put a leash on Dog, picked up my houseplant and purse and realized, really Barbara, you won’t make it through three doors, down the stairs and to the car with so many loose items. Be sensible, get a tote bag.

I put down my coffee travel mug, the laundry, purse, houseplant, dropped the dog’s leash, and fetched a bag into which I stuffed laundry, purse, and at the top, the house plant before noticing that I hadn’t stopped the three non-electric clocks. Bag down on the entry floor, coffee mug on the small walnut entry table. Clocks stopped and balcony door locked (Oh! Good that I noticed that).

I returned to the entry, picked up Skoshi’s leash and watched dog’s tail wag, tossed the packed tote bag straps over my left shoulder and swung left to take one final glance around and heard a crash behind me. Swinging tote bag had met tabled coffee mug and brought it down as efficiently as a wrecking ball against a glass wall. Coffee shattered.

Notice, Barb — the narrow entry walls, the front door, the pantry door, the crevice where the wall turns, the small walnut entry table, the wall to the right of the front door, the wall and baseboard behind the small entry table, the radio on the table shelf, the African decorative gourd next to the radio. Notice the splattered patterns of coffee; and oh! notice that the stainless mug on the hardwood floor rests at the edge of coffee puddles—better begin there.

And I did. 

When once I made it to the car, when once I heard waiting Dave say, “I thought you were ready,” I said, “Don’t ask.”

It is good that he didn’t.