Who Goes Shopping on Thanksgiving

Hey, long time no see! Sorry for the long absence. I haven't been feeling like writing about myself lately, and now that school has started, I've been focusing a lot on writing for class.

Anyway, the reason why I'm back is because I have to rant. This weekend is Thanksgiving up in Canada. I accidentally took the wrong weekend off (I could have sworn that my dad said the 22nd...), so I had to scramble to get enough time off to join my family on the Island with the rest of my extended family. We decided this year that we would get together for Thanksgiving instead of Christmas, so going to this get together was pretty important for me. My coworkers were great, and I was able to get off of work at 1:30 on Saturday to try and catch a 3:00 ferry. So I rushed out of work as soon as I got off, and everything was going pretty smooth. My boyfriend and I were about ten minutes away from the park and ride for the ferries, with half an hour to spare, so I was pretty confident that we would make it.

But of course, we got stuck up in traffic. I kind of expected some, because we reached a section of the freeway that had a light on it. However, we were stuck in traffic for the whole half hour. All because of a mall that recently opened up.

Normally a mall wouldn't be too much of an issue. But three incredibly stupid decisions on the mall's part caused me to miss the ferry. First off, they put the building right next to a busy freeway that leads to a ferry terminal. Second, they opened it up on the week of the long weekend. And third, they only had one entrance/exit open. I keep hearing about how bad the parking lot was, and how aggravated the shoppers were, and I just want to smack them all in the head. Because the shoppers made a choice to go to the mall, and to stay in the lineup, and to try and get a spot. But I didn't have a choice to wait in traffic. I couldn't just wait for the next ferry, because, to top it all off, Saturday was the only day that did not have a 4:00 ferry.

It wasn't even just the stupidity of the mall, but the stupidity of the drivers and shoppers. I was in a lane that was next to the line up for people getting into the parking lot. And several people just stopped because they had got to the front of the line, and now wanted to budge in. And because the people in line didn't want to let anyone in, the people in my lane just sat there. I would have tried to get into the lane on my other side, but by then there were non stop cars that wouldn't let me in. At the time, I thought there was a 4:00 ferry, so once we got through all the traffic I went to the park and ride, which was full, so we went to the ferry terminal parking, bought a 24 hour parking pass, went and bought our ferry tickets. Then realized that it said 5:00, not 4:00... So we got a refund on the ferry tickets, and went home.

I had a very good Pho dinner for Thanksgiving, then snuggled up with my boyfriend and played some video games. I guess it wasn't the worst Thanksgiving, because at least I had my boyfriend, but it would have been nice to be with my family.

And I still blame the mall for 90% of the problem... and myself for booking the wrong weekend off.