More memories

Today was a busy, busy day. In fact, it's 10:45 p.m. and I just got home 10 minutes ago. I was gone all day so I have nothing of humor to tell you.
So I have decided to reach back in time and tell you a story. A true story (there's no way I could make this stuff up!). It's a story about something that happened on one of our vacations. I could probably blog every day for a month about "things" that happened on our vacations.
Anyway, this vacation was a cruise from Texas. One day we stopped in Jamaica. We decided to forego any costly excursion and took the kids into town to shop and see the sights. Let me stop right there. If you've ever been to Jamaica then you're asking yourself, "Sights?! Did I miss something when I was there? Sights??" Ahhh, Jamaica.
Anyway, we hailed a taxi-van driver and he drove us into town. He told us that he would meet us back at a certain time to take us back to the ship. So we shopped and bought some of the touristy stuff that you find at most tourist spots. We wandered around for a few hours and then went to meet the driver. He was there (yay!) and we loaded up to go back to the dock. Now, daughter #1 used to be a collector of Coke cans. Her aspiration was to get a can from every country she visited. So she inquired about finding a can of Coke to take back home. The driver said that he would be glad to take us to a grocery store. So he did. No Coke. We then drove to another store. No Coke. We proceeded to a third store and the story was the same. No Coke. Now mind you, we didn't ask to go to a 2nd, or 3rd, or 4th store -- he insisted. In fact, we were starting to get a bit worried about getting back to the ship before it left without us. We told him we'd better get back. He said that he knew of one more store and was certain we'd get a can of Coke there. He then proceeded to drive deeper into the "city", paying no attention to our protestations. This seemed to be a pretty harsh neighborhood, to put it delicately. And people were staring at the taxi-van carrying 8 tourists. Evidently tourists never make it this far in. He found the store and proceeded to park at the curb, backing into a man with a cart of goods in the process. He got out to talk to the man. Then my darling hubby, trying to make this all go away sooner, rather than later, said he would go check the store himself. And before I could say, "But ..........", he was gone. He left us. Me -- a defenseless mom and her eight small(ish) children. All alone in a van. And people were starting to stare -- a lot. More and more people were starting to stare. The kids were typically clueless to our predicament but I was one worried mom. So I decided to do what any sane mother would have done in my position -- I picked up the video camera and started taping. "Mom," Daughter #1 said -- "why are you taping now?!". "Because," I said, "we're probably going to be killed out here and I want to leave evidence behind of what happened to us!" ( I then added a chuckle so they'd all think I was just joking. Ha!!!) I still have that tape.
Needless to say, hubby made it back (without Coke) and we were still alive. The driver patched things up with the cart man and we headed to the dock --- where we walked by a store with a lot of Coke cans in the window. Go figure.
Oh, and yes, she got the Coke.