Commentary by Danielle Pelkey

The North Jefferson News



Maybe this weekend wasn’t the first time that I have ever forgotten a big event, but it was surely one of the most obvious times.

Everyone knows by now that time changed this weekend. Yes, once a year the world gives us a gift of one free hour of sleep and relaxation before church on Sunday morning.

That happened Sunday morning for most people in America, not for the Pelkey family. If ever there is a day that fighting, bickering and rudeness takes place at the Pelkey household, Sunday morning is prime time. We fuss over who’s gonna warm up the waffles, who’s gonna dress the baby and who gets first shower.

There are plenty of ways that the old Devil jumps up on our shoulders on Sunday mornings and makes it impossible not to fuss about something on the way to our beloved church family.

This Sunday was somewhat different. I don’t remember a whole lot of bickering, probably because Todd has given up on winning a fight with me in the last two weeks of my pregnancy.

We did our regular Sunday morning routine. We were all sleeping so well that it was really hard to wake ourselves. We rolled out of the bed and got ready in a rush so as to make it to church on time. When scurrying out the door, I informed Todd that he was to take Raygan and I would get our Pop Tarts and drinks to eat in the car. (See, I wasn’t joking about us rushing around on Sunday mornings.)

When I went to shut the door to the house, I spilled the tea and Pop Tarts all over the kitchen floor. Raygan turned around and yelled, “uh-oh” so as to alert her father to my clumsiness.

I sent both of them on to the car and mopped up the tea. Things always seem to calm down in the car, except for the constant complaining of whoever isn’t driving about the driver’s decisions on speed and route to take. Once we arrived at church, our mouths dropped open. Our church starts at 9 a.m. We had, for the first time in our attendance at this church, actually made it five minutes early for Sunday school and no one else was there.

We called a friend of ours from the church to make sure that we had not missed the mass e-mail that they must have sent out to tell all members not to come this Sunday morning.

When dialing the numbers I stopped dead in my tracks. I realized that the time on my phone was 7:55 a.m. and the time in the car was 8:55 a.m. This could only mean one thing — we are idiots.

I hung up before my friend, Karen, could answer her phone, hoping that she wouldn’t realize that I had called. I told Todd what loonies we were and then, don’t you know, Karen calls right back. I now have to figure out something for us to do for the next hour while waiting on church to start and I also have to admit it to my friend.

Of course she laughed at us and even offered her house for an hour of relaxation, but our embarrassment kept us in the parking lot at church. We were soon joined by the only other family in the church who had also forgotten about the time change. It actually turned out to be a nice time of fellowship, but I think I would have much rather slept in that extra hour.