CAN'T GET THERE FROM HERE

First, a little background -
Bruce is in Texas. He is moving to Richmond, where he will be living with Mike L., who goes to school there. Being in school, he is currently on break and is heading to Texas to help Bruce move. They are packing a truck (a big one that happens to be going to Richmond anyway in which Bruce has rented space). The truck will depart under its own power, and then the two of them will be roadtripping in Bruce's car to Charlottesville, where they will meet the rest of us on Monday for lunch, followed immediately by snowboarding and/or skiing.

A few more details -
The original plan (pay attention this gets complicated) was for Mike to drive to Bruce's girlfriend's (Colleen) work. Colleen would get a ride to work from a friend. She would, when she met Mike at work, drive him (in his car) to Dulles airport for his flight. Then she would drive Mike's car back to her place and leave it there until Monday, when she would drive it to Charlottesville to meet up with the snowboarding crew. Bruce and Mike, meanwhile, would pick up Lissie (Mike's girlfriend) on the way to Charlottesville (in Bruce's car). In Cville, the rightful owners would be returned to their cars. Mike would drive Lissie in his car for the rest of the trip. Bruce would drive Colleen in his car for the rest of the trip and ultimately back to her place after the trip is over (although odds are good neither Bruce nor Mike will be interested in doing anymore driving at this point and the girls will most likely be the ones behind the wheels). Did you catch all that?

The reason I have a story to tell -
The Plan, as they say, is often the first casualty of battle. Mike missed a turn on his way north from Richmond. He did not realize for a long time that he had missed a turn. He did not realize it, in fact, until the highway he was on stopped. He probably suspected something was up, but the end of the highway confirmed it for him. When he finally found the road he was looking for (in his defense the directions gave him the wrong road - well, right road, but wrong name for that stretch of it), it was rush hour and he was pretty much stuck. He did eventually make it to Colleen's work, and she did eventually drop him at the airport, but it was too late.

This is where our hero finally appears in the story -
Bruce called me at 6:30 Wednesday night and states "Mike missed his flight." To which I responded by laughing, because it's Mike and it's funny. I then agreed to a) go get Mike from the airport and b) make sure he was returned to the airport for his new flight. At the time, I thought this might mean calling up my brother, who was working night shift at the time, and asking him to drive Mike to Dulles sometime mid-morning while I was at work. I was wrong. A few phone calls later, we had both pick up and drop off arrangements straightened out. Mike's new flight was at 6:11 AM. I dropped him off at the airport at 4:30. They say you should be at the airport two hours early. I said pthbbbb! to that and probably still got him there earlier than he needed to be. I then went to work. One of my coworkers needed help with some delivery stuff, so I was supposed to be in early anyway. The timing actually worked out pretty well.

Epilogue -
Mike's car is in the right place. Mike is in the right place. I am also in the right place, but for some reason, am rather tired (so, probably, is Mike who slept even less than I did that night). I decided to take a nap when I got home that afternoon, and a shower too, since I skipped that as well that morning. Once I did that, I figured we would have officially achieved Happily Ever After (where Ever After is an unspecified amount of time which could include forever, but is neither required nor likely to do so). Unfortunately, I had to work late that day, of course, so I missed the nap. I did get the shower, though, so while it wasn't quite Happily Ever After, it was at least Adequately Ever After.