You Can't Take Me Anywhere

On Sunday afternoon, JT and I headed off to the woods of Princeton to watch my school's girl's lacrosse team play in their state championship game. We got directions to the site off my school's website, which turned out to be a colossal mistake.

Our journey started out happily enough. Mama bought a large iced coffee from the local Dunkin Donuts and JT scored a free donut. We turned up the Pat Green cd and set off on our adventure. All was well. 45 minutes later, three things were clear: 1) the directions were wrong; 2) we were about to be late for the game; and 3) Mama had to pee. Badly.

Once I figured out the street I should actually be on (and this was thanks to Lisa, the handy direction-checker back home), I had solved problem number 1 and was on my way to correcting problem number 2. But problem number 3 was becoming increasingly pressing. And though I was on the right road to find the lacrosse field, I had no idea how much further I would have to go. Plus I was in Princeton, the only town in New Jersey that doesn't feature a zippy mart on every corner. So while many posh estates were in sight, I didn't see a potty in my immediate future. I was in great pain and my ability to think clearly was being adversely affected. Desperate, I happened upon a school with the name "sacred heart" in the title. I had no idea where I was, though I knew it wasn't the school I sought. Happily, it was deep in the woods and offered help for problem number 3. I turned in to the school, looked around to see that no actual people were present, and then I pulled the car over by the woods, rushed out of the car, squatted, and answered nature's call. Sweet relief. JT served as my loyal lookout, though he spent the entire time laughing uproariously.

We hopped back into the car and got ready to turn around and leave the school. Seconds later a white school maintenance pick-up cruised by with three men in the front seat. They looked at me as I adopted my very best haughty suburban-mom-just-taking-a-drive-in-the-family-SUV look and we sped away.

I'm pretty sure that they saw me. But given my desperation in that moment, I don't even care. I do worry that JT will repeat this story to the entire kindergarten class but I think that they will understand.