It wassupposed to be a birthday present to myself, a road trip with my sister whoneeded a change of scenery, and a relaxing day for chatting and visiting ourfather's grave. And honestly it started out that way....

Even thoughan hour before we were scheduled to leave, I received a call from a woman whowas trying to re-home a dog. She asked if I could "come today" tomeet her, as she was going out of town.

Well, whatthe heck, it was essentially... sort of... on our way down to Corona del Mar,so yeah, we'd hop off the freeway and meet the dog.

Except whenwe arrived at exactly the appointed time, the woman responded to my textsaying, "I'm across the street at the grocery store. Be there to meet youin a minute." Which she was... sort of... after she unloaded her grocerieswhile I stood in the sun and waited for her to meet me at the gate to herapartments... only to find, when she arrived, that the dog was, um, not quite"as advertised." I'll leave it at that.

Back on theroad, my sister and I chatted about dogs and our kids and our grandkids and ourchildhood as we motored along Highway 241, a toll road cut through the hills between the Anaheim Hills and the ocean (because of courseI have a Fastrak transponder on my new truck, so we could easily cruise thetoll road). In no time, we were pulling into Pacific View Cemetery andstrolling over to Dad's grave.

It was apleasant visit. We left flowers on his headstone and sang a duet of hisfavorite song, "Danny Boy." Then it was back in the truck and a shortdrive down Pacific Coast Highway (with views of the ocean we hadn't seen in awhile) to our destination: Las Brisas Restaurant in Laguna Beach. I dropped Pegat the entrance so she could get us a table, and I went looking for parking,which I readily found, pulling into a spot where someone had just pulled out. Iknew the routine: Slide the Visa card into the slot and hope I'm not paying afortune for the hour or so we'd be eating lunch.

Lunch—wasfantastic. Great food, a terrific chocolate mousse cake, which we debated aboutgetting because, with the dog stop in the beginning of our journey, it wasgetting on toward afternoon, and we knew we had to beat the traffic home, butonce we ate it, we both agreed it was worth sitting in traffic for. Little didwe know....

We also dranklots and lots of chilled water. Here's how our very slow and often inattentiveserver offered that:

"Whatcan I get you ladies to drink? We have water or Evian, iced tea, a glass ofwine...."

"Oh, youhave Evian? We'd like that."

We did indeedlike it. So much so that we ordered a second bottle and shared it. We mighthave enjoyed it less had we known that the chilled glass bottles of Evian hebrought to the table and poured into our wine glasses with a flourish were $12a pop, adding a whopping $24 to the bill when it came. Yikes! I know, I know; afancier person would have expected that. My brother would have asked the priceof the fancy water first. But he's fancier than I am. Whatever. It's onlymoney. And I can be that cavalier about it now, because someone else ended uppaying for it. But I'll get to that....

We headedhome. Thirty minutes into the drive, my sister told me she needed a pitstop.(All that expensive water, you see.) But we were back in the canyon, drivingthe toll road. There was nowhere to stop. And she was getting desperate withevery passing minute.

"Justpull over," she said. "I'll find a bush."

Let's behonest. Guys do this all the time. One of the advantages of having a small hose(or, okay, whatever size it is) attached to your bladder is that you can drainit standing up. Women can't. And some people would be shocked at the thought ofa woman squatting behind a bush. But let me tell you, as free roaming childrenat a very young age, we did what was necessary so we could still wander andexplore (and probably get into some kind of predicament). As adults, my sisterand I both went on trail rides on our horses along riverbeds and on isolatedtrails. I still hike in wilderness areas—where no one has thought to installrestrooms. So yeah, it wasn't really a big deal.

I followedthe turn-off for Santiago Canyon Road, found a spot to pull over, and Pegwalked off into the bushes and relieved herself. We were back on the road inunder ten minutes. Easy peasy.

Except....

I merged backonto the toll road to find that apparently a few thousand of our neighbors werealso heading in our same direction, so five lanes of flowing traffic became twolanes of bumper-to-bumper traffic, the long back-up occurring when both thoselanes had to merge into one to join the 91 freeway. We were now rolling slowly,averaging 15 miles per hour.

I'm aCalifornia native. Generally speaking, traffic like this isn't an issue for me.I simply sit in the comfort of my Ford Maverick (with excellent lumbar support)and enjoy the scenery (if there is any). But on this day, I had left the houseat 8:30, taking Maya out before I left. Confident we'd be back by earlyafternoon, I hadn't arranged for my dog wrangler to come over and let her out.But now, since it was already 3:00p.m., far past the time Maya should have hada potty break, I called the teen wrangler's grandmother to ask if she couldpick the kid up and have her do me that favor.

"Sure,"was the immediate answer. Then I remembered: I'd locked the house up tightbefore I left. Damn.

The next callwas to my next-door neighbor, Gus, who told me when I moved in, "Hey, Ihave a key to your house" (from the previous owner). "Do you want itback? Or do you want me to keep it in case of an emergency?"

Thankgoodness Gus has a key, I thought. But... that was eight years ago. When Icalled, Gus couldn't remember having a key. Or our conversation. "Even ifI did have one," he said, "I would have no idea where it isnow."

Sigh. PoorMaya! She would have to wait. A much longer time than I anticipated....

About thistime, Peg started patting her pockets, scanning the floorboards, and asking,"Where's my phone?" I couldn't help her look. I had to keep my eyeson the car ahead of me so as not to bump.

"Whendid you last have it?"

"I don'tknow," she said. "At the restaurant maybe? I might've left it in therestroom. I took it out of my back pocket and put it on the toilet paperholder."

Brief asidehere: This is not the first time I've been with my sister that she's left herphone in a public restroom.

Since myphone was synced with my car, I could call Las Brisas without too muchdistraction. The very kind hostess searched the restroom and their lost andfound box. No phone.

I triedcalling Peg's phone to see if it was in the truck and she just couldn't see it.We heard nothing, and about that time traffic cleared, and Peg said,"Maybe it fell out of my pocket when I got out to pee."

Oh, lord.

We'd finallymade the transition onto the 91 and traffic was moving along at 70 miles perhour. We could be home in another hour or so. I could let Maya out. Myshoulders could go back to their normal position instead of hovering around myears with worry about my poor dog.

But what elsewas there to do?

I took thenext ramp off, crossed back over the freeway and got back on in the oppositedirection. We breezed back to the Santiago Canyon Road exit, I pulled up towhere I'd stopped to let Peg out previously, and she got out to look. She wasroaming through the brush, eyes on the ground, when I called her phone to seeif we could hear the ring.

Boy howdy,did we hear it. Or at least I did.

"Peg,come here."

Her phone wasin the passenger seat. She'd been sitting on it.

If only therehadn't been all that traffic noise earlier when I called it. If only we'dpulled over and stopped for a minute, had her get out and look. If only wehadn't stayed to eat that indescribably delicious chocolate mousse cake.

Wait. Scratchthat last bit. I will never regret ordering that cake.

Back on thetoll road with my apologetic sis, I inched into traffic again. Now, however,the traffic was worse. So when I say "inched," I literally mean wewere moving at zero miles per hour. The line of traffic stretched endlesslybefore us. I took deep breaths to belay the worry about Maya. When you're in asituation you can't control, you only make it worse by getting angry or upset.Wise words, no? Yeah, it's only taken me about 70 years to learn that lesson.

So I tried torelax into my Zen mode. We would be home when we arrived home. I would practicepatience and deep breathing until then.

Which iswhen, with a loud thump, my truck was rear-ended, and all my meditative energyexited the vehicle as I did, right in that long line of equally frustratedmotorists.

I marchedback to the car behind me, looking first at the damage to my beautiful newtruck. The right side of the license plate was crumpled. Slightly. That was it.The driver of the car that hit me was a kid, twenty years old. I told him, inmy sternest Mom/Teacher voice, to get over to the emergency lane, which meantboth of us shifting over two lanes. The cars behind us had seen what happenedand let us over.

I took aphoto of the license plate of his car, then one of his driver's license.

"Let mesee your registration," I told him.

"It'snot my car," he said.

"Who isit registered to?" I asked.

"It'snot registered," he said.

Then suddenlyhe was on the phone with his father, telling him what happened in theprofoundly mortified voice that only a young man who has previously believedhimself to be badass has when he has to call his mommy or daddy and admit tobeing a dumbass. Deepening his humiliation, I'm sure, was the fact that hisbuddy was sitting next to him in the car. Nothing worse than looking like adumbass in front of your bestie.

But Dad had aplan.

"Willyou take cash?" the boy asked, his father still shouting instructions onthe other end of the line.

We bothlooked at my license plate again.

"I don'tknow," I said. "How much does it cost to replace a licenseplate?"

"Um...."the kid said, still dazed and confused.

His pal wason it, though, showing me his phone when his search turned up the answer. Fiftybucks.

"Okay,"I said, "do you have fifty dollars cash?"

"Um... Ihave Citi Bank...?" the kid replied.

Once again,the coherent passenger was on it. There was an ATM twelve miles from ourlocation. I tapped the address into my phone.

"Followme there," I told the driver. "Meet me in the parking lot or I'mcalling the cops."

Yep, I said"calling the cops." What was it the Apostle Paul said about 'becomingall things to all people'? I learned this as a teacher. Talk kid talk to kids.And I was still using my your-behavior-was-inappropriate voice with him.

It took us anentire hour to drive those twelve miles. But that young man followed rightalong behind like a baby duckling, pulling into the parking lot and jogging forthe ATM. Moments later, he handed me three twenty-dollar bills.

"The ATMonly gives twenties," he said.

"I don'thave change for you," I said. Okay, yeah, maybe I had two fives in mywallet in my purse in the backseat of the truck, but I wasn't going to fetchthat for him.

"No,it's fine," he said, handing me the money and looking like he was about tocry.

I took themoney, showing him my phone as I deleted the photos I'd taken of his licenseplate and driver's license.

"We'resquare," I said, and I held out my hand. We shook on it and departed.

By then, itwas 5:00p.m. We hit the freeway again, and I finally arrived home after 6:00.Maya had been without a potty break for nearly ten hours. But she hadn't had anaccident in the house.

Who's a goodgirl?!? It has taken me years to get her fully housebroken as she was so usedto having to do everything in her small kennel. My poor girl. What a good, goodgirl.

DENOUMENT (ifyou're still reading, and if you wandered off, I still love you, you tried,dear soul, to get through this interminably long, self-absorbed rant):

I don'treally care about my license plate. Anyone who's bought a new car knows it'sonly a matter of days or weeks before somebody bumps, dings, scuffs, orotherwise mars it. I got away easy. I took the kid's money to teach him alesson. And besides, check this out:

Final totalfor our back and forth on the toll road:               $22

Reallyexpensive fancy water:                                             $24

Parking byLas Brisas with a view of the ocean:                   $ 1

Yep, adollar. The meter still had time on it when I parked.

Reallyexpensive fancy chocolate mousse cake:                  $13

All that addsup to fifty bucks, plus I got ten more for the inconvenience of having to go tothe kid's bank. That equals what he handed me in cash. The way I figure it, Pegand I had an adventure, no one was injured, we enjoyed a great lunch, saw theocean, and most important, we sang for Dad. All things considered, we had ablessed day. True story!