Spanner in the Works

I used to blog here under the name Calamity Jo and regale my non-existent readers with tales of derring do as I tried to get to work on time while keeping offspring, mind and spirit in one piece.  But I abandoned that persona in the hope that readers (now I have 12!) or potential employers might think of me as capable rather than calamitous.  However, she ocasionally comes back to haunt me.  (I've listed two books here of a similar ilk, in case anyone's interested, and to prove that it's not just me!)
Take yesterday, for example.  I had the usual Tuesday objectives - school run, fitness class, make dinner in advance, write something - with just two added complications.  A football match and a dog handling lesson.  But it was running out of petrol that truly stumped me.  Here's how events unfolded:

• Number one son had a school football match straight after pick up.  Woo hoo!  He'd been picked for the team and was beyond chuffed!  It meant binning our usual weekly swimming lessons, but I was prepared to sacrifice that in favour of standing on a sodden sideline cheering and trying to wrestle my iPhone off his bored sibling, because I'm that sort of mum.  Self-sacrificing.  
• You see, swimming lessons for the boys normally mean me-time for me.  Having painstakingly taught them how to use the lockers, showers and ACTUAL SHOWER GEL, nowadays I only occasionally dip my toe in the water with them.  More often, I elbow other customers out of the way to get to my favourite table in the coffee emporium above the roped off lanes, where I can glance between front-crawling child and the one who is with me while the other has his lesson, my Twitter page in one hand and whatever I might be reading or writing that week in the other.  
• But I banished thoughts of that pleasure from my mind while I packed the car with chocolate biscuits, water bottles, jackets, boots and the usual just-in-case necessities that make my handbag so overweight.  Then we eventually made our way to a tiny school off a confusing one-way system that I managed to find despite the best efforts of an alleged roadmap website that always seems to send people half a mile in the wrong direction.  And despite the fuel gauge on my car barely registering...  the plot thickens.  
• Anyway, the school won their match and, although my own child didn't score, he contributed some competent "assists" (I'm learning the language here Mr Gray, ok) and ran his socks off.  The boys wolfed down the aforementioned treats that I'd had the foresight to pack and I went in search of petrol before approaching our second complication.  So far so good.  But that's when I realised.... I had come out without my purse.
• We were off to our first Guide Dogs Boarder Volunteer lesson and it didn't finish until 8:30pm.  The plan was to whizz in to the sort of hideous fast-food drive thru that the boys love to get them some dinner and reward them, in advance, for their good behaviour.  Not the most ethical parenting decision I know but the children weren't supposed to come with me to this first hands-on session.  The organisation had kindly said they could come and I promised that they'd sit quietly and do their homework.  But without money, there was no anticipatory bribe, and without that how were they going to last, angelically, until 8 when the first thing they saw as we walked through the Guide Dogs headquarters was a large tin of chocolates? 
• Wait, rewind!  I'm still at the petrol station, owing £30, with just two pound coins in my pocket and half the contents of my house bar the one essential thing I required.  My purse!  I could picture it lying idle in my birthday present of a handbag, draped on the bannister at home.  The boys helped me turn the interior of our vehicle upside down in the vain hope that it might teleport itself our way but no dice. Muttering something melodramatic about going to prison, I wandered into the shop to prostrate myself at the mercy of the forecourt owner.  
• Fortunately, he was the manager, I think, and, luckily again, he didn't have to phone head office or get out the handcuffs immediately.  I could hardly offer to wash up so I told him straight up that I was in a bit of pickle as I'd inadvertently come out without any means to pay, other than a cheque book.  He almost laughed at this antiquated device and, while a queue formed embarassingly behind me, I gave him the boys' iPod Touch, my mobile number, a cheque and proof of my home address in exchange for a guarantee that I'd be back within two hours to pay my bill. 
• The boys were gutted but I explained that it was a small price to pay for keeping me out of Porridge.  I didn't tell them that he had wanted my phone but I had explained that I needed that to get online directions to my next appointment (fat chance!) and to ring him with if the need arose. I got his number and, instead, phoned my Saintly husband, who would have refuelled the car at the earliest opportunity, straight after school drop off, of course.  
• Our Hero left work early, got off the train one stop early and took his lycra clad legs to the venue of my indebtedness to pay it off, then got back on the train and ran home.  (He's training for the marathon - don't feel too sorry for him, unless you want to raise funds for St Dunstan's and sponsor him, in which case - he's a good egg, please go ahead.)  
• Meanwhile, me and the boys learnt all about dog handling, of which more later.  Save to say that they didn't get to bed until late because we had to eat whatever I'd left festering in the slow cooker while we'd been out to try to dilute the seven Quality Street they'd managed to scoff while my back was turned.  Cue grumpy morning today - for all of us.  And so the cycle spirals.  Anyone got some virtual Valium or a recipe for exorcising Calamity Jo in favour of Capable Caroline?