Just doing our part to reinforce stereotypes

Night before last, we pulled the van out into the driveway

and put our rooftop carrier on.

We're getting ready for our beach trip, you see, and the rooftop carrier is an integral part of our packing ritual.

Grayson is driving the van right now, as he does every Summer, because his office is closer to daycare and he drops off the boys and picks them up almost every day. After we put the carrier on, I asked, "Are you gonna remember not to park in the deck tomorrow?" And he said he hoped so.

Yesterday morning at work I got a text from Grayson: "Well, it almost fit."

Y'all. He forgot about the rooftop carrier and drove into the parking deck. I called him, and he said that he almost made it in, but he got stuck at the entrance and there was a pretty big gouge in the carrier.

When I got home last night, I could see the scrape across the top.

We'd loaded it the night before, so we already had most of our beach toys, linens, etc., in it.

I moved around to the back, which helped me see the extent of the damage.

Granted, it could have been worse, but our things definitely wouldn't have been protected from the elements with that kind of gash in the top.

Grayson had purchased some of this at Home Depot:

As well as some of this:

And he was able to patch it up for the trip.

I keep telling myself, "No one will really see it. It's on top of the carrier. You can't see that from the road." But I'm just having a hard time convincing myself that shuttling our family around with something strapped to the top of my car that's patched up with foam and duct tape is okay.

THEY'LL NEVER GUESS WE'RE FROM ALABAMA, INTERNET.