My Sissy's Birthday

Today is my sister Jill's birthday! She is the prettiest, most stylish, keeps-her-toenails- painted girl I know! She is also the most unselfish giving person I know. I could rant on an on about her sweetness and love for her family, but instead I am going to tell you one of the funniest things that ever happened to Jill and I.

I was 16 and Jill was 15. I had just gotten my very first car, a 1983 Buick Regal, and I was stylin. It was the prettiest car. I loved that car. Anyway... Jill and I decided we would get in my stylin car and drive to Century Plaza. This was a local mall that at the time was very nice and was the place to go.. Now it is closed. Anyway...I'm sure we got all dolled up and headed out.

We made it to the mall and did whatever we went to do and then we decided we would go by my dad's office and surprise him. I was looking for any excuse to drive my new car for a little longer. There was one problem though. Jill and I aren't what you would call "directional geniuses". We are "directionally-challenged" to say the least. We thought we knew how to get to the office from the mall, so we set out as only young inexperienced teenagers do and just went. Now remember, this was before cell-phones were prevalent and I did not have one. Hence, my penchant for always calling when I get somewhere. My parents had this drilled into us from a very young age. Well, Jill and I actually did make it to the office and saw my dad.


Here is where the story starts to fall apart. We got lost going home. I cannot even count how many times I have ridden home with my mom from that office. Twice a day for many many days because at one time we only had one car and on the days my mom needed the car we would have to drive my dad to and from work. So you would think I would have a little sense of the general direction on how to get home. Well, I didn't. And then I had Jill trying to tell me what she thought and how we should get home. Oh how I wish I had a recording to that day in the car!

I won't go into all the details of our excursion except for this little part. Here in Birmingham our airport is right in the middle of our city. Actually right in the middle of a neighborhood. You can just be driving along looking at old houses and then wham! you are in the airport. Guess what happened to us. We were so lost, bad lost, to the point of crying lost. So we just kept driving. Driving right into the airport outskirts. And then somehow we got into the non-turn-around lane that takes you straight into the airport parking area. And then into a non-turn-around lane that took us straight into the airport parking deck. And then we had to press the little button to get a parking ticket because there were all these cars behind us and the gate in front of us. And then we had to drive through the parking deck and horror of horrors drive to the parking attendant booth to get our ticket punched so the OUT gate would open and let us out. We were laughing so hard by this time we could hardly breathe. And can you imagine what the parking attendant thought. Two girls just cruising through the airport parking deck. He did not make us pay for the little drive through though. I'm sure he just wanted us out of his deck.

I'm not really sure how we made it home that day. We did though and everytime we start telling that story we still get so tickled with each other. My dad did go and get us one of those huge bag cell phones that hooked up to the cigarette lighter. Now I was stylin in my Regal and with my bag phone. Which I could not use except in case of EXTREME emergency because it cost about $10 a minute to use and my dad would rather just take the car away from me than pay that much money for a little chat!

Happy Birthday Jill! And if I 'm going to get lost (which I will) I'm glad you will always be there to (try) to tell me how to get back home!