Mama always told me to wear clean underwear.

Yep, since the dawning of time mothers have given such sage advice. Mothers live by the just in case rules of life. Now that I am a mother, I say the same things to my children. I tell them to wear clean underwear, always keep the house tidy, brush your teeth, stay together, and all the other pearls of wisdom passed down by mothers everywhere. When asked why, and children always feel the need to know why, about everything, I give the age old response, just in case.
As it turns out just in case does not have a shelf life. Just in case can bite you in the tush any time at any age. Like when the town stops by and needs to see where your water intake pipe is. And it's in the garage. Which in itself is not a problem. Two very nice men were standing in my garage talking to me about survey questions and taking pictures of my pipes. I suddenly noticed they were trying to keep very odd looks off their faces. Okay, I admit, I had a moment of panic. I had just let two total strangers into my house and I was standing alone in my closed garage with them. And what's worse I had locked the dogs in their crates. I was never so grateful that I always have my cell phone in my pocket in my life.
I tried to very nonchalantly look over my shoulder and gauge the distance between myself and the door. And that's when "just in case" hit me right between the eyes. I had failed to remember to keep the garage tidy. I got lazy and procrastinated and didn't get to the bottle return as soon as I should have and I still need to put a second coat of paint on the bottle tops we're making magnets out of.
I can only imagine what those men thought of the 15 or so cases of Budweiser bottles I've collected from people and the 600 bottle tops on the newspaper on the floor. I couldn't have stored the 9 garbage bags of soda cans in the garage where they could see them. Nope, they're on the back deck where they don't need to go. I wil be smiling to myself for a long time at what the town water department will most likely be saying about that red-head who had all those beer bottle in her garage.
I will also, from now on, be faithfully returning the bottles on a weekly basis, just in case.