OOPS! I Left My Heart and My T-shirts in San Francisco

Day 5 Of Our San Francisco Adventure

Our San Francisco adventure is nearing its end. We have two days left and the SFSWS (San Francisco Speaking With Strangers) competition is intense. Mag is leading but Kerri is gaining momentum and Shauna ‘s efforts are nothing short of pathetic. Stay tuned folks.

One simply cannot visit San Francisco without visiting its famous China Town.

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It was fortunate then, that Little Sister has immersed herself in the world of Chinese cuisine and offered to guide the Sisterhood in a visit to sample its delights. After wandering for an extended period (visiting shops and contemplating purchases of goods that we didn’t need) we were approached by a young girl promoting a Chinese restaurant. Mag surveyed the menu, gave it the “thumbs up” and we were off.

Once we were seated, Mag took control and there followed a meal of delicious and gigantic proportions…… the food just kept coming!

It was painfully obvious that we now needed to plan the rest of our day very carefully. We had just consumed enough to feed a family of four for a week and no one felt very energetic. We decided to return to our hotel to rest and recuperate. As we said good bye to China Town, Kerri caught sight of a sign that seemed particularly appropriate, given both our age and energy level….

And once again, we were riding a cable car. For some strange reason, cable cars lend themselves to conversations with strangers. Some of our most memorable moments were related to cable car journeys, and on our return to our hotel, Kerri had a “doozy.”

We were seated very closely to a couple who kept smiling at us. Mag and Shauna smiled back and then turned away. Kerri couldn’t help herself…..she kept smiling and the couple interpreted it as an invitation to chat. By the end of the ride she knew everything except their mortgage interest rate and their bank account number.

*Authors Note: She tried to claim double conversation points but Big and Little would have none of it.

Normally one would assume that consuming such an excessive amount of food would keep us confined to our hotel room, napping and recuperating, but we are the Sisterhood and we don’t give up that easily. Hence we made the bold decision to forego dinner in exchange for a visit to the Cheesecake Factory….that seemed reasonable.

We justified this partly because it was a short walk away and if we walked, at a blistering pace we could possibly negate a few of those extra calories…Bonus!

Because Big and Middle are wonderful, supportive sisters, we also decided to surprise Little with a birthday dessert. Needless to say, she was surprised and delighted. She challenged us to sing Happy Birthday in a loud voice, but we declined and just gave her a high five and our best wishes. We didn’t even attempt to speed walk our way home.

Day 6

Our San Fran adventure was at an end. We regrettably packed up our suitcases, took one last look around our hotel room and closed the door. We were officially homeward bound.

The Bellboy had taken our suitcases to our room on arrival but on checkout, to avoid giving a tip, we decided to take the small elevator close to our room. It was odd looking but we squeezed in and it took a while but we finally figured out how to operate it. Mid ride we realized that we had taken the Disabled Elevator. It was meant to carry only one passenger in a wheelchair. Oops! Our combined weight and our luggage was probably more than a passenger and a wheel chair 🙂 As we slowly creaked and jolted downward, we crossed our fingers and held our breath hoping that we wouldn’t get stuck and be forced to explain why we were in there in the first place.

We had barely recovered from the stress of our illicit elevator ride, when we found ourselves in the back of a cab, on our way to the airport. We breathed a collective sigh of relief. That sigh was short lived however, because our driver was a maniac! He was a terrible driver AND he was on his phone the whole way, in a heated conversation in a foreign language that sounded Eastern European. He bobbed and weaved in and out of traffic while we hung on for dear life. For all we knew he was arranging a “hit” on someone or planning a drug deal or a robbery and we were just innocent bystanders!

Needless to say, there was no tip and Kerri indignantly noted the license plate, cab number and company name. In a sincere effort to help others avoid a similar traumatizing event, this was not going to be forgotten.

*Authors Note: The cab company was notified but there was no response.

Although our Sisterhood Guidelines mandated a level of extravagance, in order to save money, we booked a cheaper flight leaving later in the day. It was now only mid day and we were faced with an extended stay in the San Fran airport. Hmmm…. what to do?

Kerri decided that she wanted to buy souvenirs for everyone she has ever known, so we paraded through the many airport shops featuring over priced goods. Her purchase of choice was t-shirts and based on her desire to spend as little as possible, she took forever to decide on style, size and price.

*Authors Note: Mag and Shauna are not so generous and weren’t interested in spending money on anyone else.

When faced with an endless period of “empty” time, the natural thing to do is of course visit a restaurant. Oddly enough we couldn’t make a quick food decision (we felt somewhat pressured because the restaurant was full) so we decided to just have a leisurely drink while we perused the menu. I doubt that you would be surprised to learn that Mag had a beer, Shauna had a glass of wine and Kerri couldn’t decide because they didn’t serve lemon drop martinis. She eventually reluctantly settled for a glass of wine.

At some point we realized that perhaps we should have something to eat, so after much discussion, Kerri and Mag each ordered the specialty french fries. Shauna declined to order and then proceeded to freely and heartily consume from each sister’s plate.

There was now a considerable line up waiting to get into the restaurant, so we felt pressure to order something else. That something turned out to be another round of drinks. Rest assured that we imbibed slowly so as to maintain our sobriety, but you can probably see where this is going.

By this point in time, we were feeling very comfortable and relaxed until Mag thought she heard an announcement regarding our flight. Sure enough it was the last call for boarding! Yikes! We ran like the wind and just made it to our gate in the nick of time. You can imagine the dirty looks we got from passengers who had boarded as scheduled. Oh well……

The flight was unremarkable, except that we now had to declare a winner of our SFSWS Challenge and that proved to be a challenge in itself. Kerri and Mag both felt that they had won and were pleading their case to Shauna who had no hope of even being in the mix. Eventually we agreed that Kerri and Mag were tied and they would arm wrestle for the championship at a later date. In our opinion, it was a fair and equitable solution to a perplexing dilemma.

One last issue arose as we approached Customs in Vancouver. Kerri was mentally tallying the dollar value of her purchases in preparation for her declaration, when she stopped in her tracks. Oh No! She didn’t have her T-shirts. 🙁 After much discussion, we concluded that she had left them in the airport restaurant. This was a disaster, mostly because although we had vowed to stop converting US dollars to Canadian dollars, we couldn’t help ourselves. We made the conversion and almost started to cry! This was a loss of enormous magnitude! Oh well….

*Authors Final Note: Kerri contacted Lost and Found in the San Francisco airport on several occasions, to no avail. (We felt sure you would want to know the outcome of this tragic tale)

Whenever we reminisce about our San Francisco trip, and we do so often, we can’t help thinking about Mom. She would have loved sharing our adventures. One of her favorite pastimes was standing in lines, or anywhere else for that matter, and speaking to strangers. 🙂 We are unanimous in our agreement that she would have hands down, effortlessly won the SFSWS competition, and put the Sisterhood to shame. In that respect, we are proud to have carried on her legacy of “speaking with strangers” and of course,

Betty Would Love That

We plan to publish a new post every Monday, so stayed tuned for our next one entitled “A Woman’s Place is in the Home?”