Did I ever tell you about the time I forgot to stop pet sitting?

I was at work when I got the call.

“Hey… so you know I’m home, right?”

No.

I hadn’t knowN.

If I had, I certainly wouldn’t have left my junk strewn all over the house and the dirty laundry sitting in the washing machine.

At least, that’s what I tell myself.

That wasn’t the time they came home in mid-February to discover their heater no longer working.

Nor the time they came home to discover their household a cat short.

(That was many years ago now, and I’m sorta hoping they’ve forgotten that one.)

(In my defense, it was another neighbor, not I, who’d hit the cat in a tragic vehicular accident.)

(Still, it forms a distressing pattern of non-excellence in pet care.)

Still, last Tuesday, I realized something about myself.

As I got out of my car, shuffling to their front door while desperately trying to maintain my tenuous hold on my belongings, I was greeted by the front door opening and the words “oh honey, it’s not today.”

I’d arrived a day early, though when I checked back on the text messages and with Skye, whom I’d told the date only two days prior, the starting date was clearly Wednesday.

I might have some sort of curse.

(Which is unfortunate, as I don’t watch horror movies, and hence have no clue what the proper rituals are to lift curses.)