Missing the Bus

My alarm didn’t go off. I later saw the cat had chewed through the electrical cord and, to my surprise, a fur-shaped outline was splattered against the wall and carpet. Oh well, I’m glad my cat has nine lives… one down and eight to go. I’ll tell ya about the other one, if you ask me sometime. If it weren’t for the cat jumping on my bed and licking my toes… yeah, they were hanging out of the covers…  I probably wouldn’t have awakened for another hour or so.

It had been such a long night, with my mother calling to say she’d slipped and fallen at the grocery store and broke her hip and was in the emergency room and could I please stop home to bring her a toothbrush and a comb for her hair… the one with ruby jewels on it from her grandkid. Oh, well! Then, there were all the forms to sign to admit her and say, if her insurance didn’t pay, then I would. Oh! It’s sure good I still have a job. Oh! I better get going!

I raced through the shower, almost without the water hitting my body, grabbed an apple and was out the door. Don’t worry; I put clothes on, first. My socks were mismatched, but it didn’t matter, since they wouldn’t show. I found one in the drawer of socks and one in the dirty clothes hamper. Oh well.

Oh! That looks like my bus! Did I miss it? I’ll drive to try to catch it at the next stop! Oh, this light is red for so long! Shall I run the red light? What’s this, the radio announcer said? “It’s a great weekend and it will be a high of 50 degrees today?”

What day is this? Saturday?

Oh, no! I could have slept!

Oh! I might as well go visit Mom. She won’t know what day it is either.

Precious Linda, c. 2012

  

Note: This was written in my Practice Writing Group, with a randomly chosen phrase, “missing the bus” for 10 minutes.