Girls Weekend Away: the Good, the Bad, and the Weird. Part 2.

The Bad

The saga continues and we are up to Saturday. I've told you how I weirdly left my phone at home, the panic that ensued, and how I got over it to have an absolute blast with my sister and her friends - drinking, dancing, eating, shopping, generally having a fantastic time. My weekend was great! Except for Sunday, which kinda sucked. Sunday was check out day, so  the plan was that we load the car up with bags, check out and go for a leisurely breakfast before getting in some last minute shopping, and then I would drive everyone to the airport before heading home myself. This is how it went instead, buckle up.

• Load the car with bags, no problem. I start the car to make sure everything is OK, and the car makes a strange sound and doesn't start. The girls go and hand the keys in and the hotel kindly allows us to leave the car there until we can sort it out. 
• Go and have breakfast, during which time I have several frantic phone calls with Mr BC  (who was in a movie theatre with the monkeys) while we discover that our road side assist insurance has lapsed, and NO I cannot pay it as it isn't in my name. Mr BC must do it, but first he needs to juggle money. He pays it, then I ring the NRMA and they transfer me over to RACQ. Farrrrrrrk.
• We finish breakfast, the girls cheerfully shop, I hyperventilate on a bench until the RACQ guy arrives. He cannot find any reason for the overheating, but he does say that the battery is almost kaput. He gives me (well, the car) a jump start, tells me not to turn it off and I should be fine to drive 90 minutes home. New plan: The girls organise a shuttle to the airport. I drive 20 meters down to the foyer, and leave the car running while I run to the toilet, expecting to kiss everyone goodbye when I return and hit the road. 
• I return from the toilet to find the car in a cloud of smoke and antifreeze gushing all over the ground underneath it. One of the brave girls has turned the car off. We drag the lobby couches together for a picnic lunch and wait for the RACQ guy to return.

• The very nice RACQ man tells me he cannot allow me to drive home (no shit, Sherlock!) and organizes a tow truck. I kiss the girls goodbye, and my lovely sister insists I take her mobile phone with me for the rest of my journey, because fuck knows how that is going to go. I call my beautiful cousin to come take me to the train station, and settle down with a magazine to decompress for the next hour. The heavens open in torrential rain and I don't even care.
• EXCEPT. The car key, which I had separated from the house keys so that I could give it to the tow truck, disappears out of my hand. Yes, I know. Go back and read it again. One minute it is there, the next minute it is not. I start having a bit of a panic, and search my substantial luggage for it, to no avail. It's interesting how much luggage you bring when you think you will have a car to cart it around. Despite the non helpful audience I have in one of the hotel drivers, the key cannot be found.
• The tow truck driver was not happy to find I'd lost the key, and made me sign a disclaimer in case he ripped the bottom out of my car. At this point I got a bit teary and asked him to please be gentle. He must of felt sorry for me, because he was very gentle indeed and my car's undercarriage remains intact. 
• My cousin's husband arrived to chauffeur me to the train station, as my poor cousin had the beginnings of gastro. I am so glad he was my knight in shining armor, because at that point I couldn't have faced the bus. 
• So I get dropped at Nerang train station, and drag the broken wheeled luggage across to the ticket office, where a cheerful man tells me that they are doing work on the track and I must get the bus to Brisbane.
• Thankfully the bus is a large, modern coach. The air-con is freezing but I manage to go to sleep for a few minutes during the hour long trip. For some reason, no one is charged for this bus ride. Silver lining, right there people!
• The train ride from Brisbane to (almost) my town is, by comparison, dirty, slow and scary. It's dark by this time, there are scary looking people on the train, and I am ready to throw my luggage out the door at the next platform. I'm glad I don't though.
• I get to my stop, then get on another bus (It's like I love them or something) that takes the scenic route up and down hills I had no idea existed in my town, before stopping almost directly across the street from my house. I resist the urge to kiss the ground. As I get inside my house (the joy!) the phone rings. It is my sister, ringing to tell me she just got home in Sydney. 
• I hug my babies tightly, inhale a steak and a glass of wine, then unpack because A; I don't want to face it when I wake up in the morning, and B; looking at my new shoes will cheer me up. Guess what I find in the bottom of my suitcase? The god damn car key.