On Boobs, Box Tops and Breakdowns: A Recap of Last Week

On Boobs

For my anniversary last week I gave my husband new breasts. I am pretty sure that beats the set of Callaway irons he just got and I think he will probably get more use out of them too.

Turns out I am getting surgery, which will include a boob lift. There is nothing that says marriage more than standing in a small examining room having a doctor you just met measure your boobs and take photos of them while you awkwardly try to make jokes about throwing in a tummy tuck and your husband casually looks on. I am not sure he signed up for that on that gorgeous June day eight years ago, but I am always grateful for his unwavering support.

For more on the boob situation you can check out The Fight and Write, post will be up soon.

On Box Tops

I can't believe the Lady is going to be done with kindergarten next week! Throughout the year her school does box top drives and the last one ran through May. Her class never wins.

I like to think that there are these crazy box top moms out there who have been stockpiling those precious pieces of cardboard, who have signed up online to reap extra rewards and who eat enormous amounts of Old El Paso products in order to gather enough of these box tops to make a difference. I assume their kids are usually in the upper grades (because it always seems like a second grade class wins) and these woman are experts on stock-up sales and all things box topish. I am secretly jealous of them.

The Lady always comes home talking about the ice cream party or hot chocolate party or ice pop party the winning class will receive. In turn, I start cutting off box tops from unopened cereal boxes, Yoplait Dora yogurts, and may or may not buy extra fruit snacks (even though I am trying to cut down on serving them to my kids) just because they are 2 for $4 and they have box tops. I send them in to no avail. Our $2 worth of box tops usually don't cut it.

Thanks to reupping at Costco and the large amount of Honey Nut Cheerios my kids eat, I have been stockpiling a few box tops of my own. So in May, I diligently cut out and taped box top after box top onto the photocopied sheets provided and sent them in every Friday. In the PTO email that comes out every week, I was not surprised when I didn't see the Lady's class on the list of classes in the lead. Then one of my co-workers gave me a few Ziploc bags filled with those tiny cardboard sweet dreams.

I sent in 82 box tops on the last day.

Last Monday the Lady came home and said that she heard her name over the loudspeaker as the winner from her class for the most money raised for the jog-a-thon (many thanks to my husband's coworkers who donated a few bucks towards the cause). She also said that her class won the box tops. I scoffed at her. She had told me one other time that she had heard her teachers name over the loudspeaker about the box tops, but it turned out that her teacher had only won some sort of gift basket. She also came home one day telling us that she was reading at a second grade level, we scoffed at that as well. Turns out she is (like how I threw that wee bit of info in there. What? I can brag about my baby bean!) and turns out the Lady was right about the box tops.

When the PTO email came there it was in black and white. They won. I felt a ridiculously large sense of accomplishment. Her class won with a total of 453 box tops, the Lady brought in like a quarter of those. I felt like kicking up my heels and making an extensive taco dinner with fruit snack-topped iced Betty Crocker cupcakes and a side of Go-gurts.

Oh, if you think I won't be one of those moms next year. . .let the collecting begin.

On Breakdowns

If you follow The Three Bean Salad on Facebook (go ahead and "like" it you know you want to) you know that my car broke down on my way home from work last week. It was my anniversary and my husband and I had 6:30 reservations. At first I thought that I had a flat tire, but then the check engine light started flashing. Luckily, I had just pulled off the Parkway and was on a very commercial road with a ton of car repair shops. I coasted into the first one available and tried to call my husband. He didn't answer.

I turned off the car, waited a couple of minutes and tried starting the car again with the hope that the issue had magically disappeared. It hadn't. I tried my husband again, texted and called one more time. Still no answer. I went into the shop, told them my problem and sat down. They told me to take what I needed out of the car. This consisted of my badge for work, my giant chemo blanket and a blue yoga mat.

My husband called me back. Traffic during rush hour in Fairfield County, Connecticut, is never easy to navigate. My husband's office was probably three miles from where I was. There was the possibility of it taking 30 minutes for him to get to me. He told me to call a cab.

I met him at a Toys R Us. Payed $10.80 for a four minute cab ride, tossed my blanket into the back of the van and headed out to dinner.

We were 15 minutes late but it was well worth it, not only to celebrate with my husband, to enjoy a night out alone without having to chase QT through the restaurant, but to also eavesdrop in on the conversation of a very WASPy couple sitting next to us, who had very firm beliefs on Catholics, Latinos, massage therapists and Socialism. Happy Anniversary to me!

The church where we got married