Fetching the Textbook 

I’m very fortunate that my husband is not prone to getting suspicious or there’d be trouble. Every weekend for months I leave him at home with the baby and set out to fetch the Cultures of Spain textbook from campus. And every time I come back without the blasted textbook.

All kinds of things- weather, power outages, thieves, AT&T, etc – have been conspiring to prevent me from finally fetching the damn textbook. Every weekend N asks cheerfully, “Are you off to fetch the textbook? Good luck.” And every time I come back without the textbook. 

This weekend I tried to fetch the textbook twice. In the process, I found N’s favorite cookies at an out-of-the-way store, bought real Soviet cucumbers ready for pickling, searched fruitlessly for dill stalks needed for the pickling, returned library books, but still don’t have the textbook.