This episode of It's Going to be Okay is presented by the Hartford.
The Hartford is a leading group benefits provider that's simplifying the language for employee benefits.
They're tired of seeing the insurance industry use terms and phrases that are more complicated than they need to be.
Aren't you?
Learn more at the Hartford.com slash benefits.
I'm Nora McInerney and it's going to be okay.
I work from home.
I should say I try to work from home.
I spend a lot of time answering knocks on the door from children who want to know whether or not they can play Roblox or who want me to know that whatever I hear from their siblings.
It is not the full story.
These, by the way, are my children.
Mostly, honestly, mostly it's my children knocking on the door.
Sometimes it is the neighbor kids.
Sometimes they are also knocking on the window and waving and mouthing words because whatever the story is, they want to get ahead of it.
Yes, they might say only one child is crying and possibly injured.
But what I need to understand is that the crying child got what was coming to them after a series of betrayals and backstabbing crosses double crosses.
By the way, this nearly always comes down to a conflict over a toy.
And I do use that phrase loosely because most of the time they are arguing over the garbage.
I'm sorry, trash they found on their trash walks.
And sometimes the argument will be about like a bucket they found on the street and dragged off.
And it's hard for me to not get frustrated with these interruptions.
It really is.
And it's almost embarrassing because not like my work is essential.
By any means, I'm not in the middle of care and cancer.
I'm not doing brain surgery.
I am not delivering mail to people.
But it would be nice to be able to get through more than just a few sentences before I play referee or have to open a pack of fruit snacks.
And it's hard sometimes to not feel like I'm the world's worst mother or at least the top 10 bottom 10 sitting in this room or in this closet on the opposite side of a wall where all the life is happening where all the joy and the childhood is happening where all the conflict of childhood is happening.
So, so there I am one day hunched in front of my laptop screen on a zoom call discussing a writing project with some of my colleagues having, by the way, just noted to all of them that I had maybe five minutes of work left in me before everything exploded when the door opened.
No knock.
No knock.
My neck tenses.
My eyes narrow.
My son says, you need to come to the backyard now.
Now.
Now.
Why now?
Because mom.
It's an emergency.
There are baby quail.
I had a choice here.
I had a choice here.
I knew it.
I could continue my call work on our very important deadline.
Right.
Go to the backyard and see about this baby quail emergency.
I told my colleagues I'd be right back.
And I went to the backyard.
And the quail emergency.
Was that they were so cute.
They were so cute.
Even a grown up quail is cute.
They've got these little antenna like feather thingies on top of their heads, but a baby
quail.
A baby quail looks like something dreamed up by Jim Henson.
They belong in a Muppet movie.
They belong on Fraggle Rock, the original.
The original.
They were maybe three inches tall, these little balls of fluff running in a straight line back
and forth along our backyard wall.
They're between eight to ten of them.
It's hard to tell.
They were very small, very fast.
And they moved as though they were all connected by some invisible force, which I suppose they
are.
But the actual emergency was that our Chihuahua had been chasing these little baby quail
would probably have loved to have herself a little quail snack.
And now that she'd been contained indoors, these babies were desperate to be reunited
with their mother.
Her mother had decided to put on her own oxygen mask first and run under our back gate to
safety, which she totally ditched the kids.
My kids were very distressed.
They were very distressed.
They were very worried that the babies would never find their mother.
They could not be convinced that many, many, many, many, many years of evolution means
that mama quail knew best.
She'd be back for her babies once we'd gone inside and the backyard was empty.
They did not believe me.
So in 108 degree heat, and dressed in full body synthetic unicorn pajamas, my sons herded
these little birds out of our yard and under the gate back to their mother.
Later somebody told me that when quail have a home, they stay there.
And it has been months since our family became essentially, you know, conservationist heroes.
And guess what?
The quail are still here.
They are our little bodies.
They are our little extended family.
They're still running in a line through the backyard all grown up.
And now when Archihuahua wants to chase them, they're big enough to fly over the back wall
to safety.
So what I'm saying is if someone opens your door today and asks you to go see about a
quail emergency, you go.
I'm Nora McInerney, and it's going to be okay.
What is it?
It is something different every day.
I want to hear your it.
I want to hear the thing that makes you feel like it's going to be okay.
Call us 612-568-4441, email us at iGTBO at feelingsand.co.
That's feelingsand.co.
We'll have a link to that in our show description.
It's going to be okay.
It is written, recorded, and produced by me in my closet.
Megan Palmer and Claire McInerney produced this episode.
We are a production of Feelings and Co. which also brought you terrible.
Thanks for asking.
We are an independent production company.
We're just a bunch of little guys doing our best.
We're a bunch of baby quail doing our best.
We can only do this because of listeners like you, so we thank you.
We appreciate you for listening, for rating and reviewing, for sharing with a friend who
also needs a little reassurance that even though things are mostly bad, we're going to
find something good every day.
Our team at Feelings and Co is Marcel Melikibu, Jordan Turgeon, Claire McInerney, Megan Palmer,
Eugene Kidd, and Larissa Witcher.
I think that's it.
I'll see you tomorrow.
This episode of It's Going to Be Okay was brought to you by the Hartford.
Have you ever signed up for employee benefits and then not actually use them because you
didn't know how to use them?
The Hartford is trying to change that.
Their leading group benefits provider that's tired of seeing the insurance industry use
terms and descriptions that normal people like us don't understand.
They're simplifying benefits language, making it clearer, making it more concise.
That way workers and families can find protection that actually fits their needs.
Learn more at the Hartford.com slash benefits.