Where's My Ride?

So, we had an accident a couple weeks ago with a result of putting one of our vehicles into the body shop for some severe reconstructive rear end surgery. That leaves me and the kid sharing a ride until we get the other car back. It's not like that is a hard thing, because honestly, our schedules mesh fairly well so that there is not much of a conflict.

Then, the guy I work with decided he'd like a week off and asked if I would work full time this week (normally I only work 15 hrs a week) so now I'm pulling 40 hours and trying to stay awake a full day plus having to shuffle around for a ride. My daughter's work day begins at 9am and since her place of employment is only a few steps from my place of work, I simply run out the door here and pick her up. When she finishes up she walks over gets the car, and then comes back here to fetch me home at 5. Simple plan.

Now, a while ago, when she was way less responsible, and things like staring at Brad Pitt in a wet shirt, could get her so side tracked she'd forget to come get me, I used to sit and stew while waiting on the car to come wheeling up the street to pick me up. So, of course, last night, the first night she had to "fetch me" I really expected to have to call her and remind her that she had forgotten her poor old decrepit mother.

I walked down the steps of City Hall at 5. Looked up and down the street at the parking spaces in front of the building, and not to my surprise, none of the spaces were filled with our car. "Just as I thought", so I sat myself down on a bench at the bottom of the steps and prepared to get agitated. Offers for rides started rolling in as one after another of my co-workers left the building and passed me sitting there. I kept confirming that I had a ride, but still couldn't see our car headed up the street, so decided to give the kid a call and kindly remind her that I was sitting stranded in front of City Hall. No answer at home. Then she would be here any second now, because, heck it's just a 5 minute drive. I decided I'd play Tetris on my phone while waiting and began trying to open the menu and get to the game. (yeah, that didn't work)

Totally, frustrated, I was interrupted when a gentleman who had been in my office earlier doing research opened his car door, hailed me and asked "Is that your ride?" and pointed to my daughter now parked directly across the street from me. "Oh, yeah, thanks" I smiled and feeling like a total goof got up, crossed the street and piled into the car.

My daughter is now having some kind of fit. It seems she had been unable to find a parking place on the street when she arrived early, so had parked in the city lot across the street. She said "You looked right at me, then just sat down. Then, I tried to call you on your cell phone and say 'look up' but you were trying to call me and your line was busy." She laughed some more at me, then said, "I finally just gave up and when the parking place emptied I moved over to the street space and YOU STILL DIDN'T SEE ME!" She then looked me like I was completely senile, since evidently I am. "I don't think you would have ever seen me if that guy hadn't told you I was parked here. I thought I was going to have to get out of the car and go get you."

She's probably right. And lets give her credit. She was on time, she didn't forget me, at all. So there's that. Of course, that was the first day of the week. I hope for the rest of the week I'll be able to find her when I finally finish my 8 hours of hard work and stumble exhaustedly down the front steps of City Hall. One deserves to be chauffered after a hard days work in the mines.