I’m what’s known around these parts as a flibbertigibbet.

My right brain is plump and juicy and full of imagination and fantastical ideas, but my poor old left brain, the side that makes a person good at long division and remembering where she put her keys, is completely hollow. A CT scan would show one half of my noggin all lit up, with music playing and an “Open All Night” sign flashing, and the other side dark and abandoned, full of cobwebs, with wadded up bits of old algebra homework rolling around in the desolation.

It’s a family curse. Mama’s side of the family has a wide streak of creativity. We’re also never on time, absent-minded, and prone to flights of fancy. If I’m doomed to wander the earth, hapless and fifteen minutes late to wherever I’m headed, at least I can call a cousin and feel a little better when I find out that she’s going to be twenty minutes late!

We’re all a little fragile on mama’s side, for sure, but we’re lucky too. We’ve all managed to find spouses who are willing to make sure that we don’t bonk our heads on cabinet doors or walk off cliffs. They steer us as straight as they can, and it’s quite a job.

Hubby must work overtime taking care of me. The other day I was trying to put something in the outside garbage can while holding my week-old phone, and the poor phone dropped right on the cement floor of the carport. The screen shattered. When hubby rushed outside to see why I was hollering like a banshee and saw the wreckage, he just said, “Aw man. I was going to get you a cover for that thing before this happened. I just didn’t move fast enough.”

And yesterday, after waiting for me to stop running back and forth from the car to the house to make sure that I had water and snacks and my cracked phone, you know, everything a girl needs for a day at work. He patiently drove me to work, dropped me off, and went back home when I realized that I’d forgotten to wear shoes.

Over the years, poor hubby has stopped being shocked when I do something extraordinarily dunderheaded. His mouth used to hang open when I accidentally put a jar of mayonnaise in the wrong buggy and took off down the aisle with some other lady’s groceries. Now, he just takes me gently by the shoulders and murmurs, “Now, now. Let’s give the nice lady her buggy back.”

It’s so nice to have someone to make sure most of the walls I run into are padded.

Wait, that didn’t come out right.

Pepper Ellis Hagebak is a resident of LaGrange.