Things You Can Count On: In Real Life Version

So after I rolled out the red carpet, which was disappointingly mostly just crimson crepe paper, I went to a neighbor's house for a mimosa a holiday brunch. I was late and not even fashionably so, what with all the Major Preparations for the Great Arrival of Carolyn...Online and her Georgian posse. All our friends gathered there were already all a flutter about it.

"What if this is what they do," they said, "like for a living!? What if they've 'met' lots of other naive fools friends on the interwebs and this is just the beginning! I mean, their Robbing Road Trip could start right here at Picket's house?"

While I appreciated the concern and the mimosas brunch, I laughed away all the paranoid non-believers: if anything, Carolyn would actually be Carl and 72 and I was pretty sure me and the Kid could handle that. Plus, I had costumes for all the Pickets, even me and the Kid, so if the vibe seemed weird, THEY WOULD NEVER BE ABLE TO FIND US once we split for safety.

So costumes adorned, Red Carpet unfurled, I awaited Carolyn's "we're close" message by emptying the car of sandy beach bags and soggy towels. I was lugging the loads up the back stairs when I heard Bridget (fuzzy halo and boa) squeal "they're here," gasped a bit (what about my surprise, the whole American Gothic pose we would take?!?!), wondered if the Kid still had the pimp hat on or Rory the beard or if the GFYO had zipped his zipper and adjusted his helicopter-esque beany, dropped the bags in the doorway, turned the corner into the kitchen and before I could fluff my feather headband, there right in front of me, right there in my house: it was not a Southern Belle in some version of a summer prom dress, it was not a pack of gypsies come to rob us blind, it was not anything but exactly what I knew it would be.

With my right arm still wrapped around her, I reached out my left, as if I could scoop Tempel (!) and Parker (!) and Scott (!) up at the same time in one giant swoop of a hug. (Who knew I was such a hugger?) I am not totally sure what happened next, but Bridget gave a tour, the GFYO gave up a high-five, and Parker and Rory and Tempel jumped on the trampoline. Then we went to the beach, which with five kids, a cooler, and some (stolen) beach chairs is never an easy feat, but it was as if we had done it a hundred times already: taking turns barking orders -- you go over there! watch the cars! carry this! keep going! look out! -- until we camped out on our spots in the sand and let the sun and the crab catching and the beers take over.

It was like... old times.

The rest, I will keep to myself (mostly to protect the innocent -- and the guilty) except for:

Things You Can Count On; Meeting In Real Life

DAY 1

1) Both your children will forget their use of speech -- and then remember it. Neither will make you especially proud.
2) Your friend Carolyn will wink at you and grimace for you and you will shrug together.
3) Neither of you will have use for speech when it comes to needing a cold beer: an eyebrow raise will do.
4) Your husbands will go bar-hopping while you get chick chatty with Dana's Brain and For Myself.
5) You will welcome your man-folk home. And probably (promptly?) scare them away.

DAY 2
1) Neither of you will have use for speech: only coffee and Advil.
2) You will take turns soothing a child with a splinter. You will not speak of your strategy beforehand: you will just act. You know what to do even though this kid is "officially" new to you.
3) Even these children are like old friends; nothing about them surprises -- delights? Yes. Never surprises.
4) Eventually, on a small boat, all your children will act like puppies brought home from the pound, like siblings: they will tackle and tickle and tease each other with abandon.
5) You will both feel proud and happy and relieved.
6) You will decide on two things simultaneously: book the babysitter, order the Bloody Mary.

DAY 2/Evening:
1) You will bring an extra fleece for your Southern friend. She will not believe that "you actually did that" but the coat fits her perfectly.
2) You four will share food. Tell stories. Deep ones. Funny ones. Ones from college.
3) The college stories will surprise you: wait? wha? haven't we all known each other longer than this?
4) Reality will come to you in tiny bursts just like that, a fleeting thought to remind you -- YOU HAVE NEVER MET BEFORE.
5) Eff that, you will say.
6) Let's get another drink or drive around so we're sure the kids are all asleep. You will laugh and laugh, at the same time, at the same things. It's like old times.

DAY 3/Departure:
1) You will pack luggage and five kids into a car to drive four hours to another state, another stop for her and her kids.
2) Torrential rains will fall upon your precious cargo and oddly, healthy food options McDonalds will be remarkably far and few between.
3) She will break up your kids squabbles with a skilled swipe of the arm to the back seat while you apologize to your husband for taking his only set of car keys with you on your trip.
4) She will say everything to you to make you feel better.
5) When you get to her destination -- such smart and savvy women you are -- your children will exchange addresses and hugs and toys, and you and she --Carolyn no longer online for you, but in real life with diet coke and french fries and spilled coffee and falling, fading pony tails -- you and she will unpack the car at the end of this part of the trip and say a kind of good bye and hug each other quickly.
6) You hate goodbyes. Both of you.
7) You will drive away, you and the Short Drunk People, and before you reach the UPS store to send the keys to your husband overnight, you will miss her. You will miss her kids. You will miss Scott. But you will miss her most of all and you will wish you could go back and get her and you will feel so incredibly, unbelievably happy for wifi and emails and for blogs and for airplanes and for cars and you will sigh and play classical music on the radio to lull your kids to sleep.

THEN
1) The first email will chime in ten minutes later.
2) Like old times. Thank GOD for old times.