my christmas eve

after driving for approximately 8346923 hours we had finally arrived at our final destination. madre, fearing that all businesses would be closed on christmas day, insisted that daddy dearest go out and gas the cars in preparation for our drive to visit family the next day. daddy dearest quickly obliged and insisted that i, much to my dismay, accompany him.

as we walked downstairs and got into the cars, daddy dearest informed me that not only were we going to get gas, but we were also going to make a quick stop at the target up the road so he could purchase a christmas gift for madre.

[side note: daddy dearest missed the memo that our family was celebrating christmas early (last sunday) and was unprepared. in lieu of going out later that evening to complete his shopping, he chose to wait until christmas eve in a strange town with a tired and irritable family to make his purchases.]

we gassed the cars and made our way to target only to find the parking lot deserted. an anxious-to-get-off-work employee was collecting carts and informed us that they were closed but we could try walmart. at this point, daddy dearest is getting worried because we were taking a very long time to "get gas."

we drive another 5 minutes or so and pull into the PACKED walmart parking lot. as we made our way into the store, we realized that daddy dearest was not the only loser out doing last minute shopping on christmas eve. every single cashier lane was open and had a significant line.

when daddy dearest and i finally made it to the front of the line, he realized he'd forgotten his debit card so had to charge the gift to his visa. however, the visa card that had worked fine all day was now declining and would not go through. daddy dearest had no other way to pay [i realized at this point that i forgot my wallet with my driver's license in it and was therefore illegally driving...] and decided to put the purchase on his corporate credit card. oy!

we made our way back to the condo [daddy dearest is a h.o.r.r.i.b.l.e person to follow while driving...fyi] where daddy dearest and i assembled the gift in the gift bag in the car. when he went to sign the card, we realized that neither of us had a pen, and since we'd just cleaned out the cars before this "gas" trip, there were no pens in the car. the only writing utensils to be found were some crayola markers from one of the girls in-car activities...that only show up on the special crayola paper. so basically daddy dearest signed the card with invisible ink.

as we walked upstairs, daddy dearest made the decision to present madre with the gift right then and there and not wait until christmas morning because he just wanted to get this whole nightmare over with. so that's what he did.

how the story ends:

madre laughs, opens the gift and loves it

daddy dearest hits an all time low

emma goes to bed at 10:00 cuz she's so stressed out.

the end.