The moving company lost our stuff.
Like…they had no idea where it was.
We got one of those POD things.
They bring it to your old driveway.
You fill it up, and then they take it to your new driveway.
Simple enough. But…no.
The company was very easy to reach when we were purchasing their service.
Super friendly and helpful.
But when we called them to let them know our POD full of our stuff didn’t show up at the new place they didn’t answer the phone for 2 days.
And when they finally did answer our call they said “ummm, we’re not really sure where it is.”
It took them weeks, but eventually they did find and deliver it.
Moving is stressful.
Throw in a pandemic, a 3 year old, losing your stuff, 6 weeks at your in-law’s, and you will learn exactly what your significant other thinks about the way you chew and breathe.
Everyday while our POD was MIA we’d stop by the new house to check on our cats, pull weeds in the flower beds, or whatever else we could think of as an excuse to spend time at our new home that we didn’t live in yet.
Our son, Toonces, immediately made friends with a beetle.
He spotted it the first day as it crossed the sidewalk very, very slowly.
It had a couple of wonky legs.
Still, this little fella appeared to be on a determined march.
By the end of the day the beetle made it through a patch of grass to the edge of the flower bed.
And when we came back the next day it was closer to the wall of the house.
Where it stayed for a week.
Each day Toonces would excitedly rush from the car to see his friend the beetle, squat down in the mulch, and pet it’s back.
It just sort of seesawed under the weight of his tiny finger – back and forth between a wheelie and a face plant.
Wheelie…Face plant…Wheelie…Face plant.
The second day the beetle’s ticker may have been still ticking.
But by day 3 its soul was definitely on its way to the ol’ flower bed in the sky.
Toonces called it his Dung Beetle.
We didn’t disagree.
I mean…Why can’t it be a dung beetle?
Shoot, why can’t it be a living dung beetle for that matter?
Sometimes you just gotta lie to your kids:
“You would hate this cookie.”
“Britney Spears wants you to poop in your potty.”
“A big bunny brought you a basket full of candy.”
“And a fairy will pay you for your teeth when they fall out.”
So we went along with it.
Everyday we were part of this “Weekend at Bernie’s” ruse:
Park the car.
Kneel in the mulch to see Dung Beetle.
Say hi.
Check on him a couple times.
Rock him a bit.
And say bye when we left.
One day we showed up and he was gone.
We told Toonces his Dung Beetle’s POD had finally arrived at its new dung beetle house and it had to hurry off to move in its dung beetle stuff.
We’ve told him worse lies.
This is Pretty Cool:
1. If you’ve never seen a dung beetle in action you need to see this.
2. I zoom-wrote a song yesterday with my friend Jessica Roadcap. She and I wrote Back of a Drawer from a poem I had written years before. It’s on my latest album.
3. We also wrote this song Distracted with her husband David Dorn. Still waiting on some big famous star to record it.
4. I’ve always thought my Beatle was John. Toonces is more of a Paul guy. Here he is dancing to “Dear Boy” when he was a long-haired 1 year old.
5. Picking a favorite Beatles song is like choosing a favorite oxygen particle. But if I had to…its definitely Rocky Racoon. No, Penny Lane. Wait, no, Eleanor Rigby.
6. Did you know the Thong Song was originally written to a sample from Eleanor Rigby? Here’s a fascinating video about the creation of the Thong Song. Seriously.
Hope you’re good,
Dean