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Parenting
NativeFloridian
member
For Your Entertainment: A GIF Story
NativeFloridian
member
in Parenting
Mobile - "For Your Entertainment: A GIF Story"
So this past
Saturday the fam and I decided that it might be a fun time to take a day
trip to Gainesville together. It was a bit of a last minute decision.
Mom suddenly realized she had something she needed to do that required
driving to Gainesville and I suddenly had the perfect excuse to take a
peek at the nearest Trader Joe's to my home. (It's a pretty long trek
from where I live, for the record.)
So I pitched the idea to my
mom, tossing in that I could do my grocery shopping while we were
there. Two birds, yeah! And, of course, last-minute plans are always
so successful and stress-free, so this was bound to work out well.
Did I mention I'd never actually driven to, much less navigated
Gainesville before? My only other trip to the place was in the back
seat of someone else's car, back when I was a teenager, and I was
approximately this attentive to my surroundings:
It's cool, it's cool, whatever. I have a smartphone. With GPS. I totally had this.
We'd
decided it'd be best to take separate cars because my grandma wanted to
come along and hit the flea market at the halfway point, and my
grandfather (who never comes along to anything, ever) decided he wanted
to come too. Seriously?
Well, alright, cool. So there wasn't going to be enough room in one car for all of us, and we'd take separate cars. Whatever.
So
mom heads out first with the grandparents and DD1 in tow and I decide
to keep DD2 with me and meet them at the flea market after some quick
house-tidying. Knowing my family members tend to a) not wait around for
people they're supposed to wait around for and b) not answer their
phones, I'm at the house like,
An
hour later the house was in decent shape and I had everything I needed
for DD2. I lugged myself, DD2, and all her crap out to the car, got
settled in, and called my mom. No answer. Big surprise.
So I call my grandma and she actually picks up.
I
tell her I've just gotten in the car and am ready to head out and ask
her if they've made it to the flea market. They'd JUST gotten there,
which boded well for me. It'd take me an hour to get there and they'd
have plenty of time to d!ck around and look at things. So I gas up the
car, fire up the GPS, and head in that direction.
So this drive
can be a little boring. It's virtually nothing but trees on either
side. I mean, at first it's not so bad but after about twenty minutes
it's like,
And my local radio stations start cutting out about then. And my car has no CD player. Because it's old. And I hate long-ish drives in complete silence. Stupid no CD-player-having car.
I put up with the static interruption for as long as I can and then switch the radio off. DD2 is sleeping by now, but I'm close enough to the flea market that I think I can get there without going crazy.
When I finally get there I call my grandma first, thinking she's more likely to answer the phone. No answer.
I call my mom. No answer.
Allllrigt. I'll just go in and find them, then. It's a big flea market, but whatever. I can always find the announcement booth and have them paged.
So I get out the stroller, pack DD2 into it, grab the diaper bag, get the car all locked up (manual locks, yo, gotta go around to each door!), and start strolling DD2 toward the main building. In what I assume is a vain attempt to get mom to pick up her phone, I call her again. She answers! Miracle of miracles. I ask her where she is...just as I see her walking out of the main building. "Oh, we're ready to go. Where are you?"
"Ah. I'm right in front of you. Right here..."
"...Just got DD2 all packed into her stroller. You're ready to go...right now?"
"Oh. Well, yeah, we're done here."
Siiiiiigh.
Okay. Back into the car! Those of you who already have kids know how
annoying this was for me. Those of you who are still KU with your first will know very soon.
At
least we were together at this point, I didn't have to rely on my GPS.
I'd just follow mom to her destination and then we'd head to my
destination. Bada bing!
45 or so minutes later we enter Gainesville and traffic. Which is the worst thing ever for me when I'm in an unfamiliar place. The likelihood of someone wedging between mom's car and mine was suddenly exponentially higher. As it happened, however, a Rude Wedger did not end up being the issue. Mom gunned it through a yellow and left me behind at a red light. Imagine my dismay as I watched cars turning from the intersecting road pour in behind my mom's car.
And
I had no clue where she was actually going so I couldn't consult the
GPS. So I called her to ask where she was going and she couldn't even
tell me. "The bank," was her answer. Not even the name of the bank.
"It's on 30-something street, I think. Right?"
Mmm-hmm. Yep. Right. Sure.
"How about this, mom? How about I just pull up Trader Joe's on the GPS and go there, and you can meet me there."
So
we agree on that and off I go. Everything is alright until I get to
where Trader Joe's is supposed to be and it's not there. It's some
low-income university kid neighborhood. Definitely not Trader Joe's.
Um?
And
traffic is absolutely wild at that point, and the road is three lanes
wide on both sides, so going in circles looking for the place is made
that much harder by the fact that I can barely get into the neighboring
lane, much less across three lanes to check out all the business signs
on each side of the road (to see if I can find the damn place myself)
and possibly make a quick turn-in if I need to. Also, I'm getting low
on gas at this point and all I had left was my grocery budget. To say I
was irritated is an understatement.
After about twenty minutes
of back-and-forth I finally just pulled over and decided to Google
"Trader Joe's Gainesville FL" to see if there were any articles or something
out there that would give me an actual address or nearest intersection,
or at least the name of the shopping plaza it was in. That was when my
phone decided to say something along the lines of "Data connection
lost!"
Are. You. SERIOUS?!
Add to that the fact that my phone would also not make calls, and I was done.
My
hormones may have been playing a role, but this type of thing pisses me
off to no end in normal circumstances. I was so angry at this point. I
decided Trader Joe's could go f*ck itself along with the rest of
sodding Gainesville and that I would just drive back the way I came
until my stupid phone decided to be useful again. Then I'd GPS the HELL
out of there.
Well, the phone decided to be useful again about
600 feet down the road, which made me just optimistic enough to suspect
that hormones may have been involved. I decided that maybe it wasn't so
bad and I'd try again to find TJ's. I happened to be close enough to a
Publix to pull the free WiFi and found the name of the shopping plaza I
needed almost instantly. Yay! I plugged it into the GPS and up came
my navigation instructions. AND I was only about a mile away. Go
figure.
So I FINALLY made it to TJ's...only to find that it was so slam packed that I literally could not navigate DD2's stroller through the crowd. I do not have people anxiety but I seriously almost had a crowd-induced panic attack. No exaggeration. So not only was there no way I was going to successfully gather my grocery haul in the first place, there was also no way I was staying in there willingly, period. I had to get out of there FAST.
I practically ran back to my car, re-packaged
DD2 and called my mom to let her know not to bother coming that way.
Except she didn't answer. Again. Why can't she ever. just. ANSWER?!
So I called my grandma. NO ANSWER. I sat there for TWENTY MINUTES calling them without ever getting an answer. Finally my grandma answers and tells me my mom went into the bank and still hasn't come out.
So I start explaining all my woes to my grandma so she can just tell my mom not to bother trying to meet me at TJ's when my mom suddenly returns. She's starving, she says, and so is everyone else. DD2 needed a diaper change, and I wanted to get the f*ck out of that hellhole. I was told to meet them at Sam's Club for a pizza combo and that we'd head out after that. Fine. Please. Yes.
I don't have a Sam's Club card, but whatever. After what I'd been through, I dared that Sam's Club card checker to take me on. I ended up lying to her and telling her I was getting a replacement card. Then when she turned her back I bolted for the food tables. Yeah, betch. I'm in your Sam's without a membership!
That pizza combo was seriously the best thing I've ever tasted. I was that hungry, tired, frustrated, and generally just done with the world.
All in all the ordeal lasted about five hours. Five hours too many, if you ask me. The moral of this story? Gainesville blows and Trader Joe's is not worth it.
The end.
// I love you too. //
This discussion has been closed.
Re: For Your Entertainment: A GIF Story
I have anger issues so I really felt for you in this story. I can't really pick my favorite part, but I think it's the girl mopping the floor.
ETA: MIL and FIL never answer their phones either. What is with this?
Love it!
lol... sorry about your weekend
I have taken my wife on many-a date to ogle TVs, Recliners (purchased both), and pizza. I'm classy.
Yes and yes!
// I love you too. //
I don't even know. It aggravates the hell out of me. I answer my phone every time I hear it ring, barring the appearance of a name I don't like on my caller ID.
// I love you too. //
Sounds legit.
// I love you too. //
I give you the highest five I am capable of.
// I love you too. //
You have my sympathies!
Well done. Well done.
And when I got to Sam's, I would've grabbed my mom's phone and my grandma's phone, turned the ringers on to full volume, and said, "See this? When this little talking box makes a noise, pick it up and ANSWER. IT!"
Ok, not really. But I would've wanted to.
You have my sympathies!