Frustrating out of all proportion to actual importance

The phone starts to ring while I’m setting the pooped-upon clothing to soak in the washing machine. Getting my hands out of the icky water, I start dashing to try and catch it before it goes to voice mail.

Boo Bug, who is in reality a tiny little three year old person, now becomes an obstacle to navigation larger than a barge.

As I come charging out of the laundry room, she’s standing at the bottom of the stairs – right in front of me. So I say, “Out of the way sweetie, I’ve got to get the phone!”

Naturally, she then gets directly in front of me. I try to go left around her, she goes left. I dodge to the right, she dodges to the right. I yelp, “Get outta the way!”, she immediately gets right in front of me and tries to outrun me.

Which is just exactly like someone running for their lives in front of a train in a cartoon or something. Yo! It’s on a track, just jump off the track!! Mommy’s heading past the dining room table into the kitchen, just get to the left or right, either way, doesn’t matter, just quit running in FRONT of her!!

But no. She ran in front of me until we got to the dining room door, the narrowest part of our journey from laundry room to kitchen-where-the-phone-is.

Then, she stopped dead.

Right in the middle of the doorway.

Stopped, turned around, looked up at me, and announced, “Mommy! The phone is ringing!!”

{pause}

“Oh!” quoth she, brightly. “It’s OK. It stopped.”

**sigh**

Was this trip really necessary…?