What Would You Rather Be Doing?

Once a year at Halloween, thousands of young people flood into Acropolis from out-of-town. They come for a giant block party in which the streets are shut down. By some accounts, the town doubles in size that weekend. 

It’s the only time of the year when Acropolis has traffic problems. Which is why I found myself driving in circles on a beautiful Saturday in the late afternoon, trying to find parking. My son and his grandfather were at the kids’ Halloween activities that precede the adult ones. I was planning to join them, but I couldn’t find a place to park.

I made wider and wider circles, getting farther from the festivities and closer to my own house. I grew increasingly frustrated. Finally, after almost an hour of searching, I found a parking spot that was halfway between the block party and my house. 

I looked up to see my neighbors walking past, smiling and pushing their son in a stroller.

“You guys are smart to have walked!” I called. “It’s a gorgeous Saturday evening and I just wasted an hour looking for parking when I could have been—”

Hold up. 

Before I tell you how I finished that sentence, let me remind you that it was now evening on a warm and mild Saturday. I was without my child—a single adult in a town that had just turned into the French Quarter at Mardi Gras. 

Imagine all of the things I could have wished I were doing during that time.

But what did I actually say?

Drumroll please….

“It’s a gorgeous Saturday evening and I just wasted an hour looking for parking when I could have been doing dishes!”

My neighbors laughed. They understood.

But seriously, dishes? I had to go with with dishes?

If anyone ever needed proof that I’m a 47-year-old sole parent, there you have it.

Dishes.