Mr. Rogers disapproves of such un-neighbourly behaviour

This week, Shane and I made plans to head down to Washington and take care of a few errands.  Since we were going through the trouble of crossing the border, I contacted my brother to see if he wanted to meet us somewhere between Bothell (where he works now) and Bellingham (where we were headed).  We made plans for dinner together at a local Thai restaurant in Everett.

Friday rolled around, and Shane and I decided to do a bunch of grocery-shopping before getting out of town.  By the time we left around 3, traffic along the main thoroughfare was barely moving (whoops).  We didn’t reach the border until 4:30, where we waited for another 45 minutes to cross (whoops).  While we were idling in line, Ian called to say he had gotten off work early.  I confessed that our not-so-thinking selves hadn’t left Vancouver in time to avoid rush hour, so he offered to find a place farther north to meet us.  He said he would call with new directions, and I agreed without a second thought (and whoops again).

Little did I know that our Canadian cell phone plan (with Rogers Wireless) would cease to exist south of the border.  Apparently, we can only make emergency calls when abroad (though we suspect/hope this is only during our 3-month ”probationary period”).  News to me!  So there we were: driving through the mountain passes of northern Washington with absolutely no means of communicating our situation to anyone.

Thankfully, Ian decided to just head to the restaurant we’d originally planned on (three cheers for smart brothers!).  When I finally was able to call him – after convincing a cashier to let us dial a non-local area code on a store's courtesy phone* - he was nearly there.  We arrived about ten minutes later.  And the rest, as they say, is a great story about the calming power of hot curry and good company.

*Hey everyone, go shop at Sports Authority!  They have things...and stuff that you need...at great deals!  Or so I would imagine!