Assembly Required

The last two days have been very quiet with just Miranda, our 12 year old, and me in the house. Bob is in New Mexico helping those turncoats get settled in their new digs. Not that I care or anything. Anyway, last night was ok. I let Miranda and all 5 dogs sleep with me. That should teach people to leave me in this house all by myself. Well, except for the 12 year old that is.

When I got up this morning, I decided I needed to keep busy in order to drowned out the deafening silence that has settled into this morgue of a house. So I got back in bed and slept until 9:30. That kept me busy. Then I dropped Miranda off at Rachel's so I could go have breakfast with my friend Jana. We met at the little local diner, ate and talked and I even made her cry. Yeah, I'm gifted like that. Then I went and picked Miranda up so we could head over to the Food Bank.

I was a bit nervous, having never been there before. That passed quickly once they stuck us on the assembly line. Miranda was in the middle of the line, filling bags with food items that would eventually be placed into backpacks. The backpacks are then given to low-income school age kids to take home on Fridays. Many of these kids would have little to eat on the weekends otherwise. Miranda and I were talking about how great it felt to help people. She suggested getting our entire family together and going back to the Food Bank to volunteer. Sounds like fun to me.

Anyway, I was at the end of the line packing the boxes. The bags were passed through the entire line and filled with different items from each volunteer. When it got to the end of the line, it was pressed with a machine that sealed it closed then pushed to the end of the table. That's where I was waiting to tightly pack six of the bags into a box, close it up and carry it to the scales where the next volunteer weighed and stacked the boxes on pallets. It all sounds quite simple, right?

It started out well enough.

Until the other volunteers got the hang of things

 and picked up the speed.

Then it was knees and elbows flying.

Ok, maybe a granola bar or two flew also.

After 2 hours, the Food Bank coordinator called for a break.

That's when I got the great idea to go outside and take some pictures for tomorrow's Sundays In My City blog post. Miranda and I strolled around for 10 minutes, taking pictures, talking, laughing about how fast the assembly line was moving and how much fun we were having. Then it was time to go back in but lo and behold, the doors were locked. No, seriously, we were locked out. Accident? You decide.