Caitlyn Factor

February 27th, 2021

So, I’m a romance author, right?

So, I should be one of those women who knocks Valentine’s day out of the park, right?

Not so much.

That morning I was running late…again. Nothing new there. It was the day I was hosting a big party on Facebook.  Valentine’s Day in honor of one of my new books. It starts at noon EST, so I need to get everything ready at 9:00 am PST.

First thing? I have to wake my husband up at 6:30 in the morning because someone wants to talk to me on the phone. They’ve sent a message via Facebook, and John has hidden my phone for the night. I read too much, and if I’m going to be up in the middle of the night I should be writing. (This is a practice I’ve begged for him to do for me.)  Yes, I’m a toddler in a middle-aged woman’s body. I have NO self-control. So, I wake John up for my phone before he’s ready to get up.

Next thing? I’m running back and forth around the house, trying to get things organized, a little bit cleaned up, showered, you know, the regular things. Breakfast would be nice too. Is there any sugared breakfast cereal? Please say there is…

So I scramble to my computer seconds before the party is about to start and “hit it”. I shove everything out of my way so I can post my first contest. I’d had it planned in my head. You always start out with a big prize and have them say something nice about the other authors in the party.  When I’m done, I breathe a sigh of relief.  I have ten minutes before the next post.  (Any sane person would have this pre-planned.  I didn’t.)

I hustle to the living room when I remember to ask John to go to the bank today, since I won’t be able to leave my chair for more than twenty minutes. 

“No problem,” he smiles.  He’s salutes me with his coffee and goes back to eating his healthy granola cereal.

Next post is up, who knows what I said.  But I remember that I need John’s help again.  He’d taken a lot of nice pictures of the prizes I wanted to give away for this party, but he needs to send them to me so I can post them on Facebook.

I run out of the office and find him at his computer and ask him if he could send me the pictures from his problem.

“I’ll do it right now, Honey.”  I get another smile.

I rush back to the office to see about making another post.

Oh yeah, I want to fly out next month for a trip, and I’ve screwed up Uber and Lyft on my phone. They say my phone number isn’t valid.  WTF?

Back to the living room I go.

I hurriedly explain the problem.  (Not well, John has to ask many questions because I’d used garbled language and the word thingie a lot.)  Finally I just begged him.  “Make Uber and Lyft work on my phone again.  They say my phone number isn’t associated with my phone.  How is that even possible?  I don’t know what I did wrong,” I’m whining.  

“Well Caitlyn, I suppose I need to look at your phone.”

“Oh yeah.” I rush back to the office to get my phone and make another post.

“Caitlyn, are you coming back?” John asks from the other room. (Ooops, I’d forgotten him.) I rush back and give him my phone. Somehow he makes the phone work.

“John, can you send me the photos of the prizes?”

He looks at me exasperated. “Are you going to at least say thank you for the card?” he asks.

“What card?”

“The Valentine’s Day card I left propped up on against your monitor.”

Holy hell. Had I just shoved that out of the way and not noticed it? I go back to the office. There it is, a big oversized red envelope that had been sitting on top of the papers, that I’d shoved to the side when I’d first sat down.  It even had my name on it.

I open it. It’s a beautiful laser-cut 3-D card. “It’s gorgeous,” I say. “I love it.” It takes me three minutes to notice there’s writing on the back.

I then remember I have a card for John. He’s so sweet. He likes it. But seriously? How could I have been so blind?

Note to self. No more Valentine’s day Facebook parties.

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