T'was the Night Before Vacation

Throughout the day (Thursday), we were preparing to leave for vacation around 9 am Friday morning. I was thinking at one time that just about everything that could go wrong was doing so!

Now I look at the things that went wrong on Thursday before leaving and I laugh.

My morning started out with some trouble at the office. It seemed like every phone call I answered was an issue. I made a special effort to get into the office early to take care of last minute things. Unfortunately I stayed behind the entire day and instead of leaving early or even on time, it was 7 pm before I even left the office. What a bummer!

Earlier in the day I had dropped my van at the shop to get an oil change. Unfortunately, I was hit with another issue. “Mrs. Reeves, I need to let you know that your two front tires are in bad shape and your two back ones are not far behind. We recommend that you replace them very soon.” I asked if replacing the tires could wait until we returned from vacation. “Well, you can if you’d like but you need to be very careful as the thread is very worn.” I asked if I could see what they were talking about with the tires. I don’t know much about tires, but after seeing my two front ones, I was convinced enough that they were right. I called Dirk and told him what was going on. The tires would also have to be ordered! The earliest that they would be able to replace our tires would be 9 am Friday morning. We accepted. I left the shop totally upset that this would not only delay our trip by a few hours, but it was going to cost us a fortune to replace all four tires right before vacation! Another bummer!

Next stop…I needed to stop at the mall on the way home to pick up some more foundation (makeup). Okay, for some of you who don’t already know, it is VERY HARD for African American women to find the perfect match in foundation for our skin color. About two months ago, I had a makeover done at the mall and fell in love with this foundation. I purchased the foundation along with many other things. I walked in and asked for my foundation color and was hit with, “Oh, our company has discontinued that line of foundation and we have a few bottles left, but not your color.” For a split second, I thought I was going to sit on the floor and act like a 2 year old. I couldn’t believe this! So, I asked the obvious to the same woman who gave me the makeover to begin with, “Did you not know at the time you gave me the makeover that they were discontinuing it?” She claimed that she didn’t know at the time so I left it at that. She tried to sell me on another foundation. It was such a big difference. By this time, I was desperate so I purchased it so I would have some type of foundation while on vacation. As I was walking out of the mall, to keep from crying, I started laughing out of frustration. Another bummer!

Finally, I got home around 8:30 or so. I was exhausted, but knew that I needed to quickly eat dinner and finish my packing. I had all of my clothes laid out and was about to pack them all up and finally be done with this day. That was until; I remembered that I didn’t have a suitcase as the American Airlines baggage thingy destroyed my last one. About this time, I thought I was going to have a panic attack. Another bummer!

Eventually everything worked out and we’re now enjoying our first day of vacation already!

The shop was able to put the tires on about an hour earlier than originally planned.

Dirk was nice to let me use his suitcase while he used a couple of bags.

AND…the lady at Merle Norman called me to let me know that she felt really bad about the whole thing and was able to find me three bottles of my foundation color from another store. She said that she would hold them until I got back from vacation. Yes, I know that I will still have to change to yet another foundation since this one is discontinued, but at least her finding three bottles will allow me six months to find a new one!