Never again

Today, we were scheduled to pick up Dante. La Netta had told Lita please no Dante, that picking him up all the way over in Alameda was going to ruin our schedule, but Lita said go ahead with it.

So La Netta headed to Dante's house, and when she got to the road that led to Alameda, she was stuck in traffic.

The traffic lasted for ten minutes, then twenty minutes, then thirty minutes. This was what we needed to do to pick up Dante? La Netta told Rosa to call Lita and tell her about it.

"Don't say the M-word!", I warned.

"Hello? Lita?", said Rosa. "We're caught in stop-and-go traffic on the [freeway name] Freeway, and . . ." She told her about heading towards Dante's house. She was told she could do what she wanted now.

We decided to continue heading to Dante's house, to make the trip worthwhile. We notched one hour of driving through traffic.

Then, all of a sudden, the song "Everywhere" began playing on the radio. "It's Michelle Branch!", I said. "She's here to brighten our day!"

The time reached 11:00 and we were still on the highway, moving very slowly. Then, the song "Apologize" by OneRepublic started playing. We got off to make our exit, and we saw the truck that had been wrecked. Some liquid was spilt on the ground.

Rosa said "axx oxxx the pxxxx" as we approached Dante's house. I purged it off in the back row.

When we got to Dante's house, La Netta got out to stretch and I got out to spit.

It turned out Dante wasn't coming. He had in fact told Lita that he only came on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

All this ride was for nothing! And we missed Cinnabuns!

While I was putting my seatbelt on, I touched the strap. I got white and black specks on my right hand. When we stopped at Jack-in-the-box, I went in to use the restroom.

I washed my hand with soap and water, then scraped. I heard some men outside -- were they saying "Pokémon"? Or were they saying "pxke around"?

I urinated, then flushed. When I got outside, I asked Rosa whether those people were saying the P&A words.

"I think they were speaking Filipino", she said.

"Tagalog?", I asked.

"Yes", she said. Rosa laughed.

We then headed back to the CIWP office. We got Jolene, and picked up Mike Williams.

The next stop was Costco, to buy some pizza for Rosa, Ken and Mike.

"Who's getting lunch at Costo, and who's getting lunch at McDonald's, and who's getting lunch at Trader Joe's?", I asked.

"No one's getting lunch at McDonald's", said La Netta. "Do you need to get juices?"

"We can get them at Wal-mart." La Netta had had Wal-mart on the schedule yesterday, but hadn't gone because her back had hurt to much to push Jolene's wheelchair and she didn't have a partner. She had told me that we could go today.

"Let me put this as nicely as possible", said La Netta. "We can't go to Trader Joe's and Wal-mart."

"Then I'll go to Trader Joe's", I said.

Next La Netta took me to Trader Joe's. She pointed out the coconut date rolls, and I bought a box. Then I got my lunch/dinner: a box of cheese enchiladas.

"Is there anywhere else you want to go? Juice aisle?", asked La Netta.

"Yes", I replied. So we visited the juice aisle to get pomegranate blackberry Juice Squeeze.

I paid for my three items at the check-out. They came out to $9.93.

While I was leaving, I heard a woman say, "Pardon?"

We dropped Mike off. Being too early to drop Ken off, La Netta made a trip to JC Penney's. Rosa went in with Jolene and Ken, and La Netta went in with me.

La Netta took me to the men's restroom. She left me there to purge off the "pardon", while she looked at clothes. After 15 minutes, she picked me up.

She dropped Ken off, then took me home.

Because of picking up Dante today, we were thrown completely off schedule. We missed Cinnabuns and couldn't go to both Trader Joe's and Wal-mart. This should provide a valuable lesson. Hopefully Lita will never again put Dante with our group.