“Anakin, escort the Senator back to her planet of Naboo. She’ll be safer there. And don’t use registered transport. Travel as refugees.” – Mace Windu, Star Wars II: Attack of the Clones
Sheesh. Travel. Don’t even get me started…
Well, you just had to get me going didn’t you. I hope you’re proud of yourself.
OK. This past Saturday, Dad Windu’s company had the annual charter bus trip to Chicago. The company pays for a charter bus and driver to show up in the company parking lot at 6:30 a.m., our cruise director loads it up with doughnuts, bagels, coffee, juice and water, and Mr. Bus Driver Man rolls out at 7 a.m.
For the first couple of hours, the bus is quiet as everyone sleeps or reads or listens to music or talks, but when we’re about an hour outside of Chicago two things happen. First, there’s a raffle. The pot begins at $60 and tickets are sold at $1 each or 6 for $5. The pot got up to over $300 and was split two ways. We, alas, did not win. Second, our cruise director begins the mettle-testing, present-stealing, White Elephant game. The week before, she hits the town looking for enough small gifts as there are seats on the bus. After handing out a playing card to each person (kids included), she begins to pull cards from another deck and when it’s your turn, you can either pick a wrapped present or steal someone else’s present (and then they get to pick which of the two options to do again). The hot items this year were gift cards to Victoria’s Secret and Starbucks. I got a box of Good and Plenty and a puzzle book. Dad Windu got a gift card to a pretzel place at the mall. Padawan Learner got a can of Monster energy drink. Seriously. I, being a BadMom made him wait to try it until the next day at home. Nothing like tempting a migraine when you’re hours and hours from home and have a several hour bus trip ahead of you. He tried just a little on Sunday and didn’t like the taste it – too intense. Can we all say, “Whew!”
We spent most of our afternoon at the Field Museum and spent a little bit of time walking the Magnificent Mile (yawn), ducking into stores when the cold, cold wind got to be too much. After dinner, we hustled back over to the bus stop where we waited for a while in the cold until the bus driver could muscle his way through traffic to pick us up.
Our poor Mr. Bus Driver Man earned his pay on this trip. Because of white-outs, snow-covered roads and black ice, the trip took 2.5 hours longer to get there than expected and 2.5 hours longer to get back. We slowly proceeded passed cars that had slid off the road and rolled over, semi-trucks that had skidded and jack-knifed, and were passed by people driving far.too.fast.for.the.conditions. The lights from assorted police cruisers, fire trucks and ambulances – especially on the dark return trip – made for a distorted carnival atmosphere.
Ooh, the pretties. Oh, I hope all those people are alright. Ah, the danger of travel in the Great Frozen Midwest.
