i see patterns

Usually when my car is stolen I find out standing in the parking lot. Who the fuck starts a sentence usually when my car gets stolen? Like, usually when I grocery shop, usually when I pick-up the girls from school, usually when I pay bills. Actually, Usually my car is stolen more frequently than I sit down to pay bills.

Usually it starts with me in the parking lot, purple morning streaked skies, Josie on my hip, lunches stacked under my arm, backpack on the shoulder above the hip that does not hold Josie. We are late for school. There’s a key to nothing sticking out of my left hand and empty space above gray concrete where my car isn’t.

It usually starts just about like that.

7:15 Tuesday morning. There’s Scott in my door and I open it to let him in.

“Please,” he said, one foot in “Please tell me you didn’t park in the lot last night.”

He’s holding a tote bag with evenly spaced red and green and blue little footprints. It hangs down beside his leg. Reason for the stop, it has a book of Amelia's that's due back at school. I See Patterns. The book is called I See Patterns.

I see patterns, too.