Of Lateness and A Missing Card

“Ahh! This exit! I knew I was going to mess up here!” I bemoaned the wrong turn I took at the split.

“It said B!?!” Anna was bewildered with our NC signs.

“But this is 40, not Crossroads...” I whined.

“Oh, it’s supposed to be 101 B!”

I tried not to yell too much at the exits that came after Benson/64 and before Cary Parkway. Ever since I first started driving they had caused me no end of grief. Literally.

Coal in My Stocking coincided with Anna saying, “Woohoo!” as I took the sharp round-about. It wouldn’t be the first one I took to get back to the right exit.

“6:15!!?” A glance at the clock told me we were really late. “Quick! Call Heather and tell her I I don’t like that switch and always get lost!” There’s nothing that quite frazzles me as much as being late (and therefore wasting someone else’s time) and getting lost.

We finally pulled into Red Robin and, “Quick! Hand me the card so I can finish writing in it so we can go inside!”

Anna starts looking through her Bible, “Wait...? Where is it?”

Thus began the search. We looked in between the seats, in the purses and bags. No card.

“What’d you do with it?!” My organized personality was feeling highly unorganized and therefore lost and confused, not at all mad at poor Anna.

“I don’t know!”

“You didn’t leave the car!!” I wailed.

“Oh no! There’s the T. family!” When one is late, one thinks irrationally. Why I was so concerned with them being there, since I wasn’t there to see them in the first place, I’m not quite sure. “Oh, good! They don’t see us!”

As soon as they stepped inside, Anna and I opened the doors, pulled the seats back, and rechecked everything, about three times over. To no avail. Poor Anna; she couldn’t stop apologizing.

“Didn’t you have it?” She asked.

“No. I handed it back to you to put in the envelope until we got here.”

Finally, we pronounced the card missing in action. I decided we had kept Heather waiting long enough as it was. I went inside to apologize to poor Heather. Profusely.

Later that evening, after a great dinner and late night talking with fabulous friends, Anna and I went back to the car.

“Alright, before we go, we have to find that card!!” By now, I was no longer frazzled and began to laugh at the lost card and the whole situation.

We began to search everywhere again, but now that it was dark I had my flashlight on. As I was checking between the seat again, the light reflected off of the clear envelope.

Anna and I had a laugh.