The Blessings of Cleaning the Church Saturday morning

As ward Elder's Quorum President it was Brent's duty to line up the Saturday morning church clean up crew for the month of November. The first week he fulfilled his calling and several other families joined him down at the church Saturday morning.

The second week was Camille's baptism and on Saturday morning he suddenly remembered his responsibility, so my Dad and the girls went down and helped him clean it right before the baptism.

Then again, last Saturday he woke up and told me he had just remembered that he was in charge of cleaning the church again. That's when I put two and two together and realized he had the assignment all month.

So 5 from our family went down again and cleaned the church for the third time this month. (We got one week off for Stake Conference) Sorry we are stealing everyone else's blessings due to my husband's procrastination. The job really isn't so bad and we were in and out in just over an hour. We've had lots of practice at doing it since moving here.

We had just pulled onto the freeway when out of nowhere the state trooper lights start flashing behind our Buick. As we pull over we notice for the first time that Caroline's booster is in the other car. . . of course. Officer _____, and his purple bumpy tie, that I swear he stole off my brother in the 80's, leans through our window till he is right in Brent's sheepish face. At this time I notice the state of affairs and sum up that we look like pure white trash. Camille is sitting between us in the front seat, Brent's semester of snack food accumulation is scattered around, the Buick as always looks like it's on it's last leg , and . . . Oh, we have an illegal 5 year old in our backseat, who by now is totally frozen in terror and keeps saying, "What are they gonna do? What are they gonna do?"

If you knew Caroline and knew how uptight she is about rules and consequences you would understand.

"I noticed that your child in the backseat is not buckled in. How old is she?"

Brent tells him, "Five" and reassures him that she does have her seat belt on, we just must've forgotten her booster seat.

He then gets right in Brent's face (I am not exagerating) and chews him out telling him he is the lowest excuse for a father, and that he is a father himself and can't even fathom how a father could buckle his kid into a car and not even notice that she is missing her booster.

Brent tells him, " Well, I don't buckle her into the car, she does it herself. "

I jumped in trying to save us narrating how fast we hurried out to the car and just forgot since we were late, and how we usually don't drive this car because it's her Dad's car and her booster is in the other car, and you should see how good she always is about buckling up, officer.

Caroline is crying now and I am reassuring her that it isn't her fault and she is going to be fine, no one is taking her away. I am just about to tell him my best line about how we are on our way home from cleaning the CHURCH when he takes off back to his cruiser.

We all sit there awaiting our sentence. This quick little trip to the church just turned into a major financial setback for Brent. After a minute or two our officer is back to tell us exactly how much trouble Brent has recklessly gotten himself into. . . auto insurance going up 20% for three years, 2 points on Brent's driving record and a minimum of $140 dollar ticket. But then he pauses and says,

"You are lucky though. I just got a call from the detective and have to run and don't have time to write the ticket."

Whoo Whee! We drove away feeling like the luckiest suckers in the world. I told Brent we needed to go out to lunch and celebrate all the money we just saved. Don't ya think? Or at least Dunkin' Donuts. . .

Nah, he just drove us home and looked up the NY state law regarding booster seats, then started looking up states that don't require boosters for us to move to.

We will now be moving to Arkansas so Marcus can make his own booster decisions at the age of 3.

It was actually a really good time to be pulled over when you compare it to many other times I have been a passenger in the buick in the last 4 years. What if we had been lugging our sail boat with all 7 crammed in our only car with a hitch? No chance claiming that we were dutifully fulfilling our church responsibilties with a sailboat lagging behind.

And I don't even want to think about how bad he would've cussed Brent out if he had been the officer driving by when Brent's Double/Decker Buick was in action in the summer of 2007.

"You are harnessing up your children to boards in the backseat!!!! Now, I am a father too, and I just can't. . .

Yeah, it would've been ugly.