I Just Feel Like Skipping

Oh, sweet yesterday. Have you ever woken up to a Volvo of a Wednesday to find that she drives like a convertible coupe with the top down? Yesterday was such a Wednesday. Bright sun, blue skies, out-of-town friends and others not seen in a while, an evening that played like the afternoon - all the makings of a should-be-Friday. It was the sort of day that makes you want to play hooky. So I did.

I was never the type of girl who played hooky, which is probably why the idea seems so appealing to me. The girls I knew who played hooky were bold and brassy and had no problem telling teachers what was what. I had nothing to be bold about; there are bags of flour that weigh more in volume than I did in high school, and the only thing brassy about me were my braces. As for the teachers, there are only two whom I attempted to give a piece of my mind, one in middle school and the other by means of a written letter that I proofread and revised (I'm surprised I didn't type it) before slapping it under the windshield wiper of her car.

I didn't use my newfound collegiate freedom for purposes of hooky, either. In fact, I missed fewer days of school in college than I did high school (yes, it's possible I'm the biggest nerd you know): one for illness and three for a trip to DC (my priorities weren't completely skewed). It's not that I wasn't pulled by the first warm days of sunshine back then, it's just that I had plans. I was going to become a psychologist and counsel patients. This plan came with fears, the first being not getting into graduate school and the second of me sitting across from a couch-laden patient while saying, "I'd love to help you with your psychosomatic issues, Mrs. Jacobson, but you see, I skipped that day."

Flash forward a decade. I didn't become a psychologist, nor do I know a Mrs. Jacobson. If she does struggle with psychosomatic issues, she's going to have to seek help elsewhere. I'm busy - playing hooky.

*I know the picture above has nothing to do with the kids and I playing hooky yesterday, other than the fact that we played hooky from the camera as well, focusing on visiting and playing too much to remember to take it out. The picture above is one of my favorites. I don't know the year it was taken, but it is of my grandmother and great-grandmother sitting on my father's old motorcycle. Their expressions (not to mention the peace signs) make me think they were having a convertible-coupe-with-the-top-down sort of Wednesday. Those are some women about to play hooky.