The tale of a car seat.

If y'all remember from last week, this week our family is celebrating Stuart's fall break with a little mini-vacation to North Carolina. 

We've officially made the 10 hour grueling drive.

We've officially arrived. 

I can't believe how much different the weather is here.  It may come as no surprise then that we are all ill-prepared for all this cool weather.  What can I say?  I'm acclimated to the deep South now.  We're still in late summer down there, man.  But shorts and blouses aren't really cuttin' the mustard up here.  Though I must admit, I'm quite thankful to no longer be sweating out of every pore in my body.  It makes me feel like a man.

And North Carolina sure is beautiful.

We visited a local farmer's market the first day we arrived - pumpkins, local fruit and vegetables, grass-fed beef, local milk, pastured chicken....it was wonderful!

I got to talking with the local chicken farmer while we were browsing around - man, I could really spend some time talking with people like that.  In a matter of five minutes, we'd covered the insecurity of particular careers, the wave of the economy, pastured animal products, self-sustaining tendencies, blogs, consumer desires, a recent local e.coli outbreak that has already claimed the life of multiple young children, and the politics of raw milk.  

I could have stayed and chatted him up longer but the family was starting to give me the skank eye, so I figured it was time to call it.  And that's all I have to say about that.

That story had nothing to do with this next story I am about to tell you except that they happened on the same day.

You're welcome for having no consistency in my writing patterns.

After the farmers market, we headed to Lowe's to pick up a grill for Stuart's brother.  After all, we did have five pounds of pastured chicken that needed to be grilled.  And without a grill...well, the chicken wasn't going to be cooked for dinner.  So we zoomed over to Lowe's and began to load Justin's new grill into the back of our X-Terra.  In order to accommodate the awkward grill, we had to move Georgia's car seat over to Justin's car for the ride home.

As we pulled out of the parking lot, we saw Justin waving us down.

Where's the car seat, Stu?

What do you mean?  It's in the back of your Honda.

No it's not.  There's no car seat back there.

Say whaaaaaat?

Turns out, my friends, when Stuart moved the car seat to Justin's Honda....it wasn't actually Justin's Honda. It was another Honda that was parked on the other side of us.

Yes, that means that at one point, on both sides of our X-Terra, there were two golden Hondas parked.

And instead of putting the car seat in the Honda on the right, Stuart accidentally put the car seat in the Honda on the left (which just happened to be unlocked).

By the time we had loaded the grill and realized our unique situation, the other Honda had driven away...

...never to be seen again.

We were stranded.  In the Lowe's parking lot.  With no car seat.  

I cannot imagine what the owner of the second golden Honda thought when they turned around and realized a car seat had been strapped into their back seat.  Not to mention, I'm pretty sure they rode off with a few extra cheese crackers and raisins that were stuck to the side of the car seat as well.

Maybe the Lord knew they needed a car seat...

What do you think?  No really...I want to know!

If you had to come up with a story for the second-golden-Honda-owner, what would it be?  He he.  I'd love to have a little friendly story competition in the comments section!

My Father-In-Law assures me the second-golden-Honda-owner is a very old, semi-crazy lady who will soon be strapping her cats into the car seat, all the while pretending they are young children and fitting them into knitted Christmas sweaters.

Which I suppose is a possibility.

My friend Natali often reminds me that everything is either a good time or a good story later.  I suppose the runaway car seat could be a considered a bit of both.  As sad as I was at the loss of our car seat, I was so thankful our baby wasn't in it as the second-golden-Honda-owner drove off.  Can you even imagine.  Seriously.  It makes me want to vomit thinking about it.

A car seat is replaceable.

My little curly-haired munchkin is not.

And because I know you have nothing better to do today, I think it's time for you to stretch your writing-legs and fill this comments section up with a bit of where you think who you think the new owner of our car seat is and where it will continue it's journey.

Will it find it's way to a thrift-store shelf?

Will it find a needy home?

Will it be thrown out with Wednesdays trash?

Will it seriously confuse the second-golden-Honda-owner into wondering if they had a child they forgot about?

Tee hee.

Life happens.  All you can do is cry one tear.  And then laugh it off.