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So, early this morning I set off on my journey to Luton airport, from whence I would fly to Amsterdam, then take a train to Rotterdam and be reunited with Oh Patient One.

It never occurred to me that history was going to repeat itself. Again. Kind of. And that by the middle of the day I would somehow have The Talking Head’s Road to Nowhere running over and over through my brain.

This is what happened.

I got the bus from the end of my road to the main bus station in town. It made good time, it was fine, I arrived at the bus station with time to spare. But minus the bottom button on my coat. Never mind, thought I. It’s only a button. Worse things could happen. Little did I know how prophetic that thought would be.

My next link, the bus for Stansted airport (from where I would pick up the connecting coach to Luton) was right on schedule, and I arrived at Stansted with plenty of time to spare. I went into the coach office to buy my ticket and. . .

“I’m sorry,” Coach Rep told me. “All coaches to Luton have been canceled. Luton is currently in the middle of a blizzard and all the flights have been canceled, too.”

I couldn’t beeleeve it! How could one person have such rotten luck with travel? It wasn’t fair.

I went to the airline desk in Stansted to see if it was possible to switch to a flight from there, in view of the fact that I had a ticket but with no way of using it, but all flights from there today were either canceled or full (the weather wasn’t too great there, either).

So, wearily, I retraced my steps and got on the bus back to Chelmsford (the driver was very surprised to see me again so quickly), then got the bus from the main depot to the village where I live. Guess what? There, on the floor of the bus at the back, was my button! I kid you not.

Of course, when I arrived home exactly three hours after leaving, I did what any person being thwarted by the forces of nature would do. I had a good moan to my friends. I told them they would never believe what had happened to me, but then added they probably would, because it was me we were talking about, and when I’d finished recounting my sorry tale this is what they had to say:

Barb Caridad Ferrer: “Honey, you’re right. If it was anyone but you, I’d be saying, “Stop drinking in the afternoons, you’re hallucinating.” But it’s you.  So it must be true.  :-)”

When I got home I hit the lemon tea with a vengeance!

Cindy Holby: “I’m never traveling with you. With your luck I’d be afraid of being sucked into a black hole and never heard from again.”

She has a point. If I weren’t me I wouldn’t travel with me, either.

Alyssa Day (who is hopefully still planning a trip to see me this summer) wrote a joke letter to Navy Guy:

Dear Navy Guy, I know I said I was traveling in England with Michelle, but somehow there was this train, and then this airplane, and we were diverted to a different station, and something about red tape with her passport, and, well, I’m writing you from a Djibouti jail. We only get one meal and one trip to the outhouse per day, so if you could come and post bail soonest. . .

Please come and see me, Alyssa, I promise I only have problems when traveling alone. Well, mostly I don’t have trouble when I’m traveling with others. . . Except for the time when Teenager No #2 and I were traveling to Hamburg and we had to get a $200 cab to the airport because the trains weren’t running, and then we got put on standby. But we did get to Hamburg in the end.

Then Eileen Carr/Rendahl piped up: “My editor would cut the button thing and say it wasn’t believable. ”

I’m with Eileen. If I were my editor I’d cut the button, too. But just so that you know I really don’t make this stuff up:

The coat with the missing button. . .

The missing button. . .