Destination: Poland

If you’re attempting to make multiple connections in the course of a journey, the most crucial one is, of course, the first. Miss that and you miss the boat entirely. So why is it that I am found running up Park Street at 11:29 a.m. with a heavy suitcase (it’s the gifts) when the bus for O’Hare leaves promptly at 11:30?

It’s because of the Christmas treats. I had to mail a box of goodies to daughters who are far away and (I am thinking) in desperate need of chocolate-covered gingerbread. But oh, the line at the post office! When it became clear that waiting it out would cost me my bus and therefore flights and therefore Poland and all my meetings, I considered two alternatives: toss the box into the car and forget about it, or give it to someone in line with a $10 bill and the following plea: “mail it for me please; I am desperately late. If it’s more, forget it, throw it away, eat it, pocket the money, whatever. But I don’t think it’s more; I will appreciate it so much. And so will the little ones at the other end.”

So which would you have done? *

That I made the bus is nothing short of a miracle. Now, at the airport, I am finding innovative ways to blog. Of course. A day cannot pass…

* We live in troubled times. I took one look at the people in line, all over the age of 80, it seemed (who else has time to stand at the post office at 11:20 a.m.), and I thought – they’re going to have me arrested. Sigh. The goodies got tossed to the back seat.