Lasts.

Today was supposed to be a day of lasts. Last time to wake up to pitch-black and silence in my queen-sized bed in the basement, last time to stumble up the stairs and look out at that faded bluebird house in our front yard, last time to sit down at the kitchen table and eat two of Mom's homemade blueberry-banana muffins. It was the last full day I'd spend in Illinois, since my parents are moving to near Cincinatti, Ohio by the end of the summer.

Waking up this morning, I thought I could mull around the house, the vegetable garden, the flower garden, and the woods, all for nostalgia's sake and for the fact that I'd spent the last fifteen years of my life at this house.

How wrong I was.

As we were walking out the door to church, my mom accidentally dropped her phone straight into my German shepherd's water bowl. I watched the whole thing take place: Mom was clasping her pink phone with her index finger and her pinky because she didn't have a pocket to put it in and her nail polish was still drying.

She was saying goodbye to my dad when the phone slipped out of her grasp and fell right into the only water-filled container--outside of our lake--within ten acres.

It wasn't Mom's fault, of course. But the little pink phone died immediately and, since we were going to be gone for the rest of the week, Dad decided that we had to go get her a new phone in the afternoon.

I didn't think much about it at the time. Rachel, Mom, and I went to church and listened to Robbie Grigg's sermon. We headed to nursery duty afterward and organized a quick Veggie Tale-themed dance party with 2-year-olds Micah, Andrew, William, and Audrey. We then hit up the Art Museum for a fast perusal of the Ansel Adams photography of Yosemite Valley. We stuffed our faces at the House of India. By then it was going on 2:30, and I really wanted to make the 45-minute trek home to take a nap.

Instead, we ended up in Wood River, Illinois at a Sprint store. Of all the places I didn't want to be on my day of lasts, Wood River was at the top of the list. The town consists of an oil refinery that resembles Mordor of Lord of the Rings fame, a few boarded-up gas stations and grocery stores, rows of tiny, box-shaped houses, and a herd of glowing, radioactive deer that roam the streets.

It smells like oil, coal, and factories. Needless to say, I'm not a fan.

Right when we pulled into the parking lot, I wanted to hijack my Mom's CRV and speed my way home. And I would have, had I not been honest enough to my mom to let her know that I had left my driver's license at home.

I envisioned myself standing in the Sprint store for the next two hours, watching some overly peppy salesperson try to sell my parents the most expensive model in the place. That was not what I wanted to do on my day of lasts.

Once Mom put the CRV into park, I basically leapt out of the car and started speed-walking down to the road. I was heading straight for the gargantuan Super Walmart on the other side of the road; I was not interested all in gazing at phones for an hour.

It was appalling to find that there were no sidewalks and that I had to walk right beside the gutter.

(Statistics show that Saint Louis is one of the more obese and under-exercised cities in the United States. Hmm, I wonder why. Maybe because people are petrified of getting hit by oncoming traffic?)

I cringed as big semi-trucks roared past and an SUV almost grazed me. However, I managed to make it in one piece through two lights and up the long, winding road to the biggest Walmart I've ever been in.

What a great day to have left my cell phone and my purse at home. I mostly just walked up and down the aisles, looking at flashy discount clothes and dishware to pass the time. I looked at the price of a 12-cup coffee maker, made fish faces at the fish aquarium, and wished that I had brought my purse when I found a pair of wine goblets on sale.

The entire time, I was making a mental list of all the things I could have been doing at home. Going through my two floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and downsizing, picking green beans in my garden, taking a nap, reading my book...

I started the trek back across the highway when Rachel met up with me in the CRV.

"Thought I'd come find you," she said.

Ironic how she was driving the car without a license even though Mom said that neither of us should. Rachel and I ended up parking the car in the Sprint parking lot, listening to music on the radio, and talking to pass the time.

What was meant to be my day of lasts ended up being just another day in the River Bend area. I don't know why I expected more out of it; just because I've lived here for so long doesn't mean that I get to have an entire day dedicated to a royal goodbye.

Mom and Dad ended up with the two most high-tech cell phones of all five of us. I ended up cleaning out my chest of drawers and throwing away three bags' full of paper. None of us got a nap, but at least it made for a memorable last day.