I own a sprinkler company.

That sentence is the entire joke, honestly. You can stop reading here if you want. I’ll understand.

No okay, here’s the full story, even though it’s embarrassing and I’m still not fully over it.

Our company designs irrigation systems. We repair them, troubleshoot them, program them. I have personally sat across from homeowners and explained, in a calm professional voice, why overwatering is damaging and wasteful and a sign of not paying attention. I have been paid money to say these things.

Last Tuesday I turned on my garden drip lines and then wandered off because…well  I don’t actually know why. I think I saw a snack? Kris might have asked me where something was that was sitting directly in front of him, which is a thing that happens constantly and still somehow requires my full attention every single time. Or maybe one of the kids yelled “Mom!” in that specific tone that bypasses all rational thought and just makes your legs start moving

Whatever it was, I left. And then I just… kept being gone.

For nineteen hours.

Now before you picture our neighborhood underwater, it was only the garden drip system. Contained. Nobody called FEMA. But those plants were not being watered anymore, they were being water boarded. My tomatoes looked like they were training for something. The peppers had that glazed expression of an animal that has accepted its fate. I’m pretty sure the squash was already filing paperwork with its insurance company.

And the whole time this was happening, I was walking around the house feeling genuinely good about myself. Productive, even. Running a business! Managing a household! Keeping track of approximately ten children! Absolutely demolishing adulthood!

The moment I found it, I just stood there. There’s a specific kind of dumb mistake that makes you immediately check if anyone was watching, not a “forgot the milk” mistake, a real one, a humiliating one that belongs entirely to you with zero available scapegoats. I looked at the drip line. It had nothing to say. Neither did I.

The worst part was that I couldn’t even blame Kris, and blaming Kris is genuinely one of my top five hobbies.

This one was just me. The owner. The professional. The woman who teaches people about irrigation systems, apparently while her own irrigation system runs for the length of a full workday plus overtime.

The plants are fine. Great, actually. Hydrated enough to survive until like 2047, which I guess is something.

My dignity is on its own timeline.