US Trip: Day 8

Every day of the time in Peoria I had to get up early to take Allan to work. It felt like I never actually rested. Ever. After dropping him at work, I usually dove back into shopping and trying to meet friends. I hate shopping by the way. Especially for clothes and shoes. And clothes, shoes, and sandals were the main items on the list. I was lucky to find so many nice shirts at Catherine’s. Now I needed pants and any other shirts I could find. There was also some medications I wanted which I can find in India but they are often low in stock or out of stock. I like the hair bands in US better and the hair clips as well so I bought some of those. And of course everyone wants some US chocolate. I decided to buy a new luggage set also. This would have been cheaper in India but I had need of it now. So I bought a nice 5 piece set. I gave one bag to Allan because I didn’t need all those. My green backpack, friend on so many of my adventures, finally needs retirement – one of its many zippered compartments broke, the cats have clawed the front of the bag and the lining inside is torn and broken. So I am on the market for a new bag with lots of pockets.


On this day I mostly shopped and had meals with my brother and his girlfriend. I am glad that I was able to find all the shirts and pants including 2 new pairs of blue jeans. I heaped everything in my room and it started to look like a refugee camp in there. The cats found it amazing, even Allan’s Daffodil kitty who came to check it out. The only other thing which happened on this day was me locking the keys in the car.

I knew I was going to do it eventually. It was a case of telling yourself not to do something and then, of course, you do it. I went across the street to call someone because of course the phone was in the car also. One of Allan’s neighbours was home, a friendly older lady who let me use the phone to call the police who gave me the numbers of two auto towing companies who will come to places when people lock their keys and they get them out. I called the one called Auto Tech.

Within 15 minutes a young guy pulled up. I was amazed at how fast he was! Not only am I used to living where time is treated as the least important factor but I am not used to towing companies being so timely. He said he hated to wait himself so he didn’t want others to wait because of him. What a nice attitude, yes? Within 2 minutes he had my car open and followed me to the ATM so I could pay him his fee. Needless to say, I clutched the car keys very carefully after that.