Well, my travel plans ended up working out at the last minute. My mom bought me a round trip bus ticket, so I traveled to Kingman on Christmas Eve, and planned to come back to Flag the day after Christmas. It wasn't ideal, because Jerbs and Benji didn't get to come, but still, I was glad to get to go.
Christmas Eve, after my mom and sister (Jill) picked me up at the bus station, we went straight to Jenny's house. Austin was SO excited to see me! He screamed my name and threw his arms around my legs and said, "I've been missin' you Auntica!" Too precious. We ate dinner and then we did our family gift exchange, since my sister was working on Christmas day. It was fun, and I got more than I felt I deserved, and I am grateful for a family that loves me. I think the best part of the entire gift opening, though, was when my dad opened a present from Austin, and it was Austin's Power Rangers Samurai sword that he plays with ALL the time. The WTF? look on my dad's face was beyond priceless, and my sister was cracking up and explained that Austin had absolutely insisted that that be a gift for my dad. As Austin said, it was for next time he comes over to my dad's house. Hilarious.
My sisters and I and Austin went to look at Christmas lights, and Austin was still awake when we got back to his house. I read him 'Twas the Night Before Christmas (so fun) and once he was asleep we played Santa and put all of his gifts under the tree. The big one was a Hot Wheels ride on quad. When my sisters and I were kids, "Santa" always left us a note next to the empty cookie plate, so I wrote Austin a note from Santa. I loved doing that part, because I wanted to carry on that tradition a little bit.
My sister woke up at 4:30 AM to do presents (since she had to work at 7) and Austin was ecstatic. He loved everything he got, especially the quad, and within 5 minutes he was riding it around the house. It was fun to see him so happy. Jill and I spent the day with Austin, and it was pretty much just watching him ride around on his quad. He really loves that thing, and he was especially excited when he figured out how to make it go backwards. He kept telling us, "It has versery to make it go backwards!"
So Christmas night I got my stuff all packed and ready to go, and the morning after Christmas my mom picked me up to take me to the bus. There were some small errands to run first, and with about 20 minutes until my bus left I realized I had left my ticket at my sister's house. (I am a genius). I tried to reprint it at my mom's but apparently when Greyhound says they'll email you a copy of the ticket for "just in case" situations, what they really mean is that it's available for 15 minutes after you buy it. So I was stuck in Kingman until a solution could be figured out. We picked Austin up from daycare early and I spent the day baby sitting him (which is pretty much always awesome). That at least was a good thing--more time with the little munchkin.
Plan B for getting home was to see if I could just change the time on my return ticket or get a refund and buy a new one. No on both of those. Plan C was to have my sister drive me up on the 27th when she took Austin's to his dad--but she didn't want to do that. At that point I was really ready to get home so plan D was to buy an online ticket for the 12:30AM bus and leave that night. But for whatever reason online purchasing wasn't available for that trip. Plan E was to buy by phone, but the guy at the service center (out of Mumbai) insisted that the only Kingman serviced by Greyhound was Kingman, KS . . . so that didn't go well. Finally, Jerbs talked to the guy at the Flag bus station, who said that I could get on the bus in Kingman and give the driver my ID and just pay for the ticket once I got to Flag--aka, Plan F. I wasn't too happy with Plan F because it meant using my Christmas money for another bus ticket but I wanted to get home.
So my sister took me to the station and waited with me until the bus arrived (45 minutes late). Once she left and they were boarding, I tried to give the driver my ID but he wouldn't take it . . . he just let me on the bus and told me to pay when I got to Flagstaff. I was like, that's responsible.
And here's where the law breaking comes in. I called for a cab when I was about 10 minutes out of town and when I got to the station, by the time I was off the bus with all my stuff I only ended up waiting about 30 seconds for my cab (and another cab from the same company who was there picking someone up let me wait in his car). Once my cab was there I jumped in and was like let's go. So yep, I skipped out on paying for my bus ride home.
I honestly don't feel too bad about it, because I had a round trip ticket to begin with. Two trips were paid for, two trips were taken, so it balances out. And really, if they just let people on the bus without doing something to ensure that they pay . . . well, not my fault. So I only kind of did something illegal.
All in all, it was a good visit home, and Christmas itself wasn't as hard as I'd expected it to be. I would be lying if I said I hadn't thought about Corey at all, but I most definitely wasn't dwelling on it. I just enjoyed getting to see my family and Austin. The end of the trip, obviously, was very stressful, but it worked out better than expected in the end.
And really, all that stress was worth it to see this handsome dude.
Despite having had a better Christmas than expected, and despite not being as depressed as I'd thought I'd be, I'm relieved the holidays are over, and that I have a whole year to prepare for the next holiday season.
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