A pretty shirt. That was all I’d wanted. Some little extra bit of pizazz for Conduit, the local science fiction convention. I decided this on the way back home from dropping kids off to school before I picked up my husband for our youngest’s kindergarten graduation. The home to school commute is half an hour. The month has been freakishly busy. So I was also after a little bit of shopping therapy.

Hah! The irony.

I decided that it wouldn’t really be safe to find out the store hours on the phone while driving. Instead, I’d just drive by and see if it was open at 8:00 in the morning.

The irony thickens.

I turned into the big shopping center. My first choice clothing store was on the right, but there were several other smaller buildings blocking the view a bit. Was it open? There are a few cars there. Enough? Were they just the workers, or a few other early bird shoppers like me?

BAM!

Right on the drivers side. I’d hit the curb of the road divider. I veered off the curve.

Caplunk, caplunk, caplunk.

That came from the front tire. Turned out I rimmed the back tire too.

I had to get a neighbor to wake up my husband. Poor guy had thought he was in for an extra half hour of sleeping.

Epilogue: I didn’t get a shirt, but Kindergarten graduation went really well and Conduit turned out to be all the therapy I needed.