Good morning!

Let me preface this story by saying that Zoë, a terrible sleeper under the best of conditions, is currently in the process of cutting her 1-year molars. So naturally she screamed until 2 am. She has a bit of flair for the dramatic. Staying awake happily until 2 o'clock in the morning is one thing. It's tiring for me, sure, but, like, whatever. Screaming until 2 o'clock in the morning is a horse of a different colour. It's tiring and nerve frazzling, and just...yeah.

So Zoë and I were still sleeping at 10 o'clock this morning. Not that we'd slept straight through from 2 am to 10 am (ha! puh-leeze!), just that we were still asleep at 10 am after the last time we'd gotten up because we were both so exhausted from all the screaming that happened in the night that getting out of bed at 7:00 or even 7:30 seemed impossible. So we just didn't get out of bed.

Andrew put the girls on their bus, as he's been doing every day this year because—I'm not even kidding—this baby will be my undoing (I can feel my sanity peeling away). He fell asleep on the couch accidentally (when he should have been leaving for school) but that meant he was able to intercept Benjamin when he got up. So Benjamin was given breakfast and a show, which meant he had no reason to come and pounce on me.

So Zoë and I were still in bed when my phone started buzzing (at half past 10) with rapidly incoming texts.

*Buzz*

*Buzz*

*Buzz*

*Buzz*

*Buzz*

I grogily fumbled for my phone. The last text Andrew had sent was still lingering on the screen. "Good morning!" it said.

"Holy cow! We really slept in!" I thought, noting the time stamp of his message. Then I unlocked my phone to look the other messages and, suddenly wide awake, thought, "Holy cow! What happened?!"

The other four messages were pictures of Andrew's adventurous morning. He'd gone to pick up a mass cane plant from a friend who recently graduated and "backed up incorrectly" when he was leaving, completely misjudging where the driveway ended and the ditch began.

I'll admit I still don't understand how he landed exactly like this...but I will say that I've often envisioned myself in the same predicament (so I probably would have avoided the driveway altogether and parked on the side of the road because I figure any time I don't have to drive in reverse is time well spent (parking and backing up are my least favourite parts about driving (besides driving at all)).

In addition to being easy-to-care for, cane plants are lauded as being an inexpensive choice for a lovely houseplant. Indeed, "it's usually the cheapest Dracaena, and very inexpensive compared to other house plants." On Amazon.com, for example, you can order a cane plant for around $15.

Well, with a $100 tow-truck ride under its belt pot, our once-free mass cane plant has upped its value significantly. Indeed, I believe it is among the most expensive Dracaena available, and could even be considered rather expensive compared to other house plants. Next on our hit list: the Shenzhen Nongke orchid. It's only $200,000.

The good news is that Andrew and the van are both fine, and that Andrew's communication skills have improved significantly over the years. The panic this sequence of text messages evoked rivals only The Cryptic Eek Incident of 2010, but at least this time Andrew knew to stay available for further questioning!

(Actually, I suppose I didn't panic about the cryptic eek. It's just a funny story. The other message from Andrew that's in the running for the most panic inducing would be the time he told me that he was robbed in Italy (again). Yes, that conversation would be the real contender here. And it happened on a sleep-in day, too! I should just never sleep in!)

PS. For those of you who, like me, were wondering about the physics behind all of this, Andrew offers this explanation: "Backing up, listing towards the mailbox. Driveways here are often inexplicably next to deep ditches. The back end of the car went in first and I tried to go really fast and get the rest of the car out, but it was too steep and muddy. Once the back end start slipping in, I tried going forward, but it was too steep and I couldn't do it, so I went full speed in reverse instead."