This is a short story where the protagonist is a pack of Costco wipes. Nothing really happens, but everything does. If this is not your genre of choice, please move on.

It was the night before Tuesday morning. Tuesday, in my home, is the day of the week when we have moved past the denial of the weekend ending and are in the full swing of ‘alright, let’s do this’.

I was packing my kids’ bags when I made a horrifying discovery: the holy grail of parenting supplies - wipes - were gone. Not “maybe hiding in the closet” gone. Not “check the diaper bag” gone. Just… gone. An empty box stared at me like it had betrayed the family.

Let me give you some context. I have three children. Two are potty trained, one isn’t. You can see how wipes are necessary for survival. Here were my immediate thoughts:

- How could this have completely slipped my radar?

- What am I going to do?

- This is not what I need right now (I don’t recommend going down this line of thinking)

- Work is crazy tomorrow, how can I squeeze in a trip to the store to grab wipes first thing?

- It’s not a big deal. No, it most certainly is a big deal.

And then it occurred to me that the best way to obtain a pack of wipes was to send a message to a friend that was on my morning commute route. So I did. And guess what? It got me my pack of wipes, saved me a trip to the store on a Tuesday, bought me some time to plan this trip to the store, and even came with a chai offer!