Pere Noel was very kind to me and left an antique Citroen 2CV toy car under the tree to add to my collection.
Papa Noel's TRUE present(s) will arrive at CDG on Wednesday morning in the form of two beautiful offspring (mine!), Bee (20) and Harry (18), arriving from Boston. It just hasn't been Christmas without them.
Instead, here's the email I just wrote this morning (after indulging in hot tears for 5 minutes):
Dear Bee,
How awful about forgetting your passport in South Carolina! I got your phone message when I woke up this morning. It's terrible that you just discovered this last night and didn't check when you got to Massachusetts a week ago. Anyway, call me immediately when you get up.
Meanwhile -- in writing:
1. In the morning first thing you MUST go to Fedex office to retrieve the airline tickets that I sent last week.
2. Armed with tix, you must call Virgin Atlantic to see what you should do in case of "no passport" but you will have it by the next day. Find out the following: can they accommodate you on another flight? How much more will it cost? If you take a different airline just to get over to Paris/London, would you be able to use the return portion of the ticket? (Many airlines don't allow you to use the return part if you haven't used the part to get there.) The same will need to be done for British Midlands, London - Paris, once you have the answer from Virgin Atlantic.
3. Delta has a one way ticket from Boston to CDG for $346 for Dec 27 or 28. Can you scrape together the money for that, assuming of course that Virgin will let you use the return portion of the ticket?
4. I can't do any better than this to help you, sweetie. This was already really stretching it for me-- I paid for your tickets out of savings because I want so dearly to see you at Christmas. I can't do more. I wish I could. Let me know what phone calls I can make, if any. I'll be running errands etc. getting things done for Harry's arrival, and hopefully yours the next day.
5. Do you know where your passport is at your apartment and will your boyfriend be able to break in and find it and Fedex it in time for a next-day flight? Will someone be at Dad's when the passport gets Fedexed so that you don't have the same runaround with Fedex again?
I hope we'll still be able to have a merry Christmas together. No time for lecturing now -- we already know all that would be said. Time and money are finite and precious commodities, time together being the most precious of all.
Love,
Mom
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