You Know What That's a Sign Of?

Background information to this story: My children are often little hoarders like their crafty creative-brained mama.  A couple weeks ago we went to the playground near Josie's school where they collected an ungodly amount of small pinecones and acorns which we put into two shoeboxes(without lids) in the Gray Goose.  Main reason was to appease them and get them into the car and stop the whining about leaving the playground.  And of course based on how often I clean out the car, they have remained there.  Except that last night after Josie's first time cheering on the pom pom squad for the little league football team, as I attempted to get Sawyer out of the car, he knocked one of the shoeboxes out and pinecones and acorns spilled out onto the driveway next to his door.  In the dark I gathered mostly just pinecones back into the box and put it back in the car.
Which brings us to this morning.  Jimmy has been sick the past couple days with a cough/cold/fever thing which seems to now be spreading through the minions.  Thus we have a more relaxing Saturday morning than our usual hustle to make it to Jimmy's flag football games.  A.J. headed out to grab us some Dunkin Donuts.  About a minute after he shut the door, he came back in and in a serious tone asked me to come out front with him.  I hesitated as I was still in PJs and no bra and he says to just grab Bart and hold him in front of me which I do.  I step out on the porch and he goes over near my car and points down at some stuff on the ground that looks like little brown balls or something.  He says: "Look at this!  You know what that's a sign of?"  I am squinting to see since I have my glasses on which need updating.  I take a random guess since we do live in a very "country" neighborhood with a lot of wild life.  "I don't know- deer." Thinking in my head that it's deer poop.  Then A.J. starts getting a bit more riled up and says:"No, those are nuts!  It's a sign of squirrels!  You probably have a squirrel living in your car!!"  Then it dawns on me about the shoebox spilling last night and I start cracking up and yell back to him: "Actually, it's a sign that Sawyer spilled the shoebox full of acorns and pinecones that your oldest two collected at the park the other week!"
The best part is I am pretty sure that the chain smokers who always walk their two dogs past our house twice a day while smoking witnessed this whole thing...

The Dropoff & the Rats' Nest

So due to the fact that A.J.'s mom is in the hospital and his schedule is pretty much wake up at some ungodly hour, head to work then to the hospital then back to work, sometimes back to the hospital and finally back home, I am on Josie dropoff duty.  And being that Moxie has not completed her babysitting/first aid/ child CPR courses yet, the three amigos must join us.  After the usual painful loading process we make the jaunt to Josie's school.  In attempting to "put on my happy face" though I am so NOT a morning person, I do a lot of obnoxious car dancing/singing/arms flapping- like-a-crazy-woman to whatever semi-kidfriendly music I can find on the radio.  This morning brought about the newest dance move in my cardancing repertoire- "the chicken wing".  The judges gave it a firm thumbs down, but I do think Bart was enjoying it from the view of his baby mirror in the back.
Amazingly, we have been getting Josie to school on time which probably explains my need for a third mongo mug of coffee in the morning to fully function.  The way that Josie's dropoff works is that the cars weave through the parking lot around the perimeter of the school in a single file line to the side where all the 6th grade patrols and a few teachers are standing.  At this point you pull up along the sidewalk, a patrol or a teacher opens the car door and your kid must be standing ready to leap out of the car to keep things running smoothly.  Kid out, patrol shuts door and you file out the other side of the parking lot.  On more days than not, the patrols have some sort of funny notion that my dinged up Odyssey has power sliding doors.  Again this morning the patrol barely touched the handle waiting for the door to open much to the kids and my amusement as I yell:"It's not automatic!!" Patrol laughs it off and opens the door, Josie springs out as we shout our "I love yous!".  However, along with Josie, a pile of God knows what and a box of empty capri suns went flying out of the Goose.  Patrol nicely threw said trash back into the car, I thanked him as he shut the door and I started to drive away only to hear a bad crunching noise.  I put on the brakes as the little patrols are making faces that seem to say "OMG!"  Rolled down the window and ask if everything is okay because by this point I have created a traffic jam.  With an uncertain look, the patrol says "it's okay" and I drive away trying to figure out what I hit.
Then in order to cover my tracks I text my friend who just happens to be the teacher who is in charge of the patrols and witnessed the whole debacle.  Here are our texts verbatim:

Me: Not sure WTH rolled out of my car & I ran over but little patrol said it was okay & I didn't want to hold up line- sorry for the litter(insert tight smiling emoticon here)
Friend: Ha ha ha oh my God that just made me crack up...it was a plate...emphasis on "was"! Ha ha ha
Me: (Insert winking emoticon)
Friend: I just swept up the pieces about 20 minutes ago!
Me: Sorry- was it plastic??
Friend: No I think it was ceramic...no worries its kind of funny now

Later I called A.J. to see how my mother-in-law is doing and to cheer things up a bit, I reiterated the story.  His reply was "Why don't you clean that rats' nest up?!"