Thursday in Houston

Have you lost or misplaced your title?
Is it in your name?
Do you know your VIN number?
Stand in this line.
What's your number?
25!
Anyone below 25?
15!
16!
22!
Stand in this line.
Our number was 29
at 1:30 in the afternoon on this grey, balmy December day.

Government offices are all about waiting your turn.
Stand here.
Show these documents.
Cash or check only.
No exceptions.
No streamlining.
No smiles.
Neeutral colors.
Speak up!

It makes me wish I were better organized
wish I had a better filing system
wish I had not lost the title to the car.

I'll spend hours today cleaning up our mistakes
a lost car title
a cell phone left behind in Kathy
forgotten items from the grocery store
cleaning and recycling that missed pick up.

I have never figured out how to be a grown up.
I don't always know things other people seem to know
about organizing life in an orderly fashion.

I do have other gifts
although it is sometimes difficult to recount them in the midst of my failures.