And then we lost the car...

   Nothing like meeting up with old friends to catch up and have amazing Chinese food. Until you lose your car in a parking garage. Hilarity ensues.

   My expectant friend Sara (yes, it's important that you know that) and I headed over to White Plains, NY last night for a little P.F. Changs YUMMMM. I have "known of" Sara for years. We went to the same high school, were involved in some overlapping activities, had many mutual friends and liked some of the same guys. (I should say "guy" actually. It was just one. And he wasn't exactly a catch. *hangs head in shame*) So now Sara and I work in the same building. We enjoy each others company and find it so funny that we never crossed paths officially in high school. Cut to present day...we decide it would be fun to go see our friend Katie who lives in White Plains and introduce Sara to P.F.'s because she's never been *gasp!*.

   We hit the road after work and there's no traffic, very smooth ride. We park in the garage (of the mall where P.F.'s is located) and it's where I always park so I felt confident that we would walk into the mall and stumble upon the establishment.  We meet up with Katie, ate great food and catch up. I've known Katie since we were very little. Our brother's have been friends since waaaay back in pre-school. So we caught up on family, friends, boyfriends/husbands, babies (Sara) etc. We had a grand old time!

   I get them both all excited about the new Ben & Jerry's flavor "Red Velvet Cake". You should eat this.

   It is amazing. So we're wrapping up and I get a text from my husband. He had called me earlier in the day from work to "say hello". Aaron never stops cooking mid-day to call me to say hello. I assumed something was wrong. I say "what's wrong?" and he says, ready for this?, "nothing...oh but my phone screen died so I can't make calls or receive and send texts". That's not nothing, pal. I am now incommunicado with my life partner. You can imagine my surprise when I received the afore mentioned text from Aaron. I open it...

   "Rup". And I nearly pee myself. I knew he meant "Sup", which is his stock greeting for anyone, any time of the day when he just wants to check in. But I also knew that his screen didn't work so he was "hoping" he got his wife when he typed and "hoping" he was spelling correctly. It gave me a good laugh at least.

   And then things got shady.


   Sara and I stumble out into what looks like a familiar lobby in the parking garage. We are greeted with something like this and not at all familiar:

   We are lost. We lost the car. We begin wandering and find a pay station and joke that maybe we won't make it out in the allotted 15 minutes before the parking ticket fee goes up. Not far off on that one! We wander, we go in and out of stairs and elevators "are we on P2 or R1??" How can we be lost in a parking garage?? It's not that big a place. We decide to back track and go into the mall again and retrace our steps by store. "We definitely passed Kate Spade" says Sara. "And we surely went passed Lucky" says Autumn. We fight the urge to not go into a store that looks like this:

   UGH Kate Spade why do you have be to so awesome at closing time for the mall? Sniff sniff. We now recognize our way and charge the exit like bulls. Victorious!!...
Except we exit the mall into the garage and still don't recognize a thing. How the hell did we get in here? I start doing my "click the lock button" on my keys and wait to hear the familiar beep of Civic.

   Nothing...nothing...nothing...then I jokingly hit it one more time to prove that we're still lost and I hear "Beep" through the passageway. We begin to pick up speed to a skip/jog and between the pillars I can see Civic lighting up as I repeatedly hit the lock button unnecessarily. VICTORY!!!

   So we drove home and listened to gangster Hispanic rap that we couldn't understand. And this was waiting for me when I got there...

                                                         "And where's has YOU beens?"

"Sorry, cat, I got lost"