Not My Fault Monday

There is a website out there called Not Me Monday and, while I’m not going to make a practice of it, there are many people who do the Not Me Monday on a regular basis. This story seemed a good idea to transform into a Not Me Monday. Keep in mind this never happened!

Earlier in the year, my father (who lives about 15 miles away) was lamenting about all the leaves he has to vacuum off his pristine lawn and how the town is giving people heck about coming around and picking them up. Suburbia, I never knew ye. I did not offer to take all the bags of shredded leaves he had for our garden.

Flash forward to October 2009. Dad did not call and say he had 8 bags of leave to pick up, and my husband did not go and pick them up in his work truck on the way home.

3 weeks ago, my father did not call and say he had 7 more bags of leaves to pick up, and he did not say that DH should come and get them as soon as possible. He didn’t say DH should just pull around back in his work truck, and that he should hurry because if he waits too long the ground will be too soggy.

DH DID NOT call my father around 4pm on Friday of that week to tell him he’d be over to pick up the 7 bags of leaves.

My DH did not get THAT VERY DAY a brand-spanking-new Ford F-450, dual wheel work pickup with a liftgate, bins along the bed, extended cab AND a boom on the back for lifting extremely heavy tanks. Less than 50 miles on it. It sparkled. Very heavy truck. It did not have that new car smell.

It did not rain for 2 days straight prior to this. Ahem.

My father was not standing outside waiting for DH to show up. He did not wave my DH back.

DH did not shake his head no.

My father then DID NOT VIGOROUSLY WAVE MY DH BACK AROUND THE SIDE OF THE GARAGE.

DH then did not shrug, say OK! And drive around the back of the house.

*deep breath*

The truck then did not sink into my parents back yard. The pristine, vacuumed lawn. It didn’t sink in the whole way up to the lug nuts on the huge truck tires. It didn’t sink in THAT DEEPLY.

The rest of the story (when I was not told it a couple hours later) made me laugh so hard my sides hurt the next day. Oh, wait. No they didn’t!

I’d gotten home from work and my neighbor caught me outside and talked my ear off for half an hour. Then, I went inside and let Max out for about 15 minutes and got the mail. Then, we went inside. It was close to 6pm. I noticed there were NOT three messages on the machine. The first two were not from my mother:

“Hi, it’s mom. Matt got the truck stuck in the backyard. Dad wanted me to call you so you knew where he was at. Bye.”

“Hi, it’s mom again. They got the truck out. He’s on his way home. (pause). Bye.”

(notice it’s “Matt got the truck stuck” but “they got the truck out”? Yeah, I noticed that, too). The third message was from Matt:

“Hi. It’s me. I’m on the way home. See you in a bit.”

Nothing about the truck. I waited. He didn’t pull the truck in and did not stop about mid-driveway. I watched from a dark window. He didn’t get the hose and start spraying off the truck. I went outside, trying to hide my smile.

(Me: “Nice new truck!” Him: “Your mom called, didn’t she?”)

For the record the truck is fine. No damage, just mud.

It was obvious at the start there was a problem, and my dad (being a control freak) tried to take point and direct everything. (Mother, being smart, went inside). Dad has little-to-no experience with large truck like this and I dare say he was way out of his element and mainly got in the way.

But the highlights that did not happen:

My father did not suggest trying to pull the Ford out with his lawn mower.

Matt did not kill a locust tree with the winch.

Matt did not ask dad for a sledgehammer to pound wood into the mud under the tires to give it traction. My dad did not then tell Matt that he doesn’t own a sledge, and Matt didn’t then rage at him. My dad did not then go get the axe. Matt then did not pound stakes into the ground with the axe, get up and turn around only to find my father standing WAY too close and, in a bit of a rage, my DH did not stare down at my father, holding an axe in a serious manner, and say in a deep guttural voice: “MOVE!”

My father did not then scurry away, penguin-like.

After 45 minutes, the backyard that had been vacuumed of leaves just hours before did not afterward look like a Monster Truck Mud Bog had taken place. There were NOT several 2-foot-deep ruts in the backyard.

The mud tracks from my DH’s new work truck did not run for MILES.

We do not, 3 weeks later, still have pieces of my parents sod and lawn on our driveway. My father, who that night made a whole lotta nice-nice, has NOT since turned bitchy and blamed everyone who was there for the incident. It was, apparently.....not his fault.