“Have you ever accidentally brought your ranch dog to town?” I asked the lady getting out of her horse trailer next to me at our county fairgrounds. I had just arrived to enter the girls and goats in their very first open livestock show and when I got out of the pickup, I realized that the goats weren’t the only animal that hitched a ride to Watford City that afternoon.

“Well, ugh, no, my dog just comes with me I guess,” she replied sort of confused while I realized that she was the entirely wrong audience for this self-deprecating banter. She probably had a corgi. Our eleven-year-old cattle dog, who has only been to town on vet visits, stood at my feet just staring up at me as confused as I was as to why he was there. His tail was wagging so hard it moved his whole body, because, while he knew he had made a mistake, there were also cattle here. And kids. And pigs and goats and sheep and all the interesting things he didn’t expect when he chose to leap into the back of the pickup on our way out of the yard, thinking we were going to do some ranch work.

“Well, his trip wasn’t planned,” I laughed and then dialed my husband to see if he had any ideas as to what to do with the dog now. “I’ll come and get him,” he replied, totally unphased but knowing the disaster this dog would be around fancy animals.

Have you ever received a text from that same husband on a sunny Sunday morning when you thought everything was going just fine so far, but then it quickly wasn’t? Because the text read, “You wrecked my pickup.”

Turns out pulling a little bumper-pull horse trailer with the tailgate down doesn’t end well, even if you were just moving it a few feet out of the way of the garage so you could go deliver the kittens to new homes in town before we leave on vacation in a few days.

Have you ever finished a complete two-hour set of music on a patio on a beautiful evening only to look down during load-out and realize the zipper on your jean skirt was down.

Was it down the entire time? Like, all the way down? Was my guitar at least covering it please Jesus? Did anyone notice?

These are questions that will never be answered, but they can be re-lived for the rest of my life at 3 am.

Have I reached a phase in my life where I’ve been the supervisor for so long that I’ve forgotten to supervise myself? Like, I forgot that I am the one who needs the most supervising, and that didn’t change necessarily with motherhood. But the responsibilities are greater. And the pickup, well, it’s a little more expensive.

I’m not going to lie here, when I assessed the tailgate damage, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, but I cried anyway. My level of being distracted is a bit out of control lately, and I’m sure I’m not alone in this working-mom-in-the-summer situation.  I think adding the cost of a new tailgate to camp fees and snack bills might have just sent me over the edge. I faceplanted on my bed. But I couldn’t stay there long because I had a gig in Medora that night and I had to get myself together (note to self: quadruple check my zipper).

On my way my little sister called me. “I have some bad news,” she declared. “Rosie had an accident on the trampoline and she broke her arm.”

“No!” I yelled in the Jimmy John’s parking lot.

“No, I’m just kidding,” she laughed. “The girls put me up to it.”

And then I laughed too. I guess it could always be worse.

But girls? We need to talk about what’s an acceptable prank around here. This mom’s nerves are shot.