The Case of the Missing "R"

In case anyone within a five-mile radius has not already heard my daughter shout out the news, it's Rooster's seventh birthday tomorrow. Thankfully, I remembered back in September to cough up two bucks to her elementary school's PTO so they would put her name up on a board in front of the school this week. Unfortunately, I neglected to remember to take her picture with it up there until today, right around the same time a PTO member was taking down all of the kidlets' names from this week.

Me being me, I rushed the kidlets over and begged for her to put Rooster's name back up on the board so I could take the picture to relieve some Mommy guilt. Heck, most of Rooster's name was still up there. It was only the "R" that had been removed by the time I got there. The lady agreed to do so, and bent over her box of letters to find the missing letter.

It was gone. She went through every single letter in that box, but it was as if the "R" had been vaporized by aliens.

At this point, the PTO member started getting worried that she lost the letter somewhere. My three kidlets, her two kidlets, plus the two of us adults, in addition to another family that had come over for a similar plea all stopped everything to search high and low for the missing "R." I was starting to wonder whether it might just be easier to legally change my daughter's name to "Ooster" when the woman apologized profusely and said she would just have to go into the school office to get another "R," and would it be okay if she did that later? I agreed, figuring that if she left up Rooster's name until Monday, that would still work for the purpose of our picture.

As we started to walk away, the woman put her hand in her pocket to locate her keys. Suddenly, she called out to stop us. The missing "R" was in her pocket, where she had placed it to use later for a word on the other side of the message board. The PTO member promptly corrected the spelling of Rooster's name, allowed me to take Rooster's picture next to the Happy Birthday sign, and we were on our merry way.

It was somewhere in the middle of all of that when Horse reminded me I never did remember to take her picture when her name was up on the board ten days ago. Oh, well. One out of two ain't bad, right?