Chocolate Story with a Sweet Ending

Last night I was supposed to go do a focus group and get paid $75 to taste gourmet chocolates. I was looking forward to this all week. After work I got in my car and drove through heavy traffic to Plaza Research, down by the airport. The recruiter on the phone told me it started at 6:00 p.m. but when they sent me a postcard with directions to the facility, it asked me to be there 15 minutes early. At 15 minutes to 6, I called to let them know that I was on Sepulveda, almost there but not quite. They told me to "not bother coming" because the group would be in the room by then. :( But I figured maybe I could still make it by 6:00 and since I was so close, I drove the rest of the way anyway, and arrived in their office at 6:05. They said "Why did you bother coming? We told you not to on the phone?". I explained about the traffic, and they were not very nice. No $75, no chocolate.

The thing is, I absolutely structured my week around this stupid focus group. I made sure Lauren had extra milk in the fridge, pumped at work right before I left, got my mom to watch her, changed social plans, missed Greg's birthday party, etc. Not to mention all of the wasted time and gas driving down there. So I was really mad at them for not letting me in, simply for being 5 minutes late. Then they tried to tell me that no, I was really 20 minutes late. But the recruiter on the phone had said 6:00. I would not have agreed to it had I thought it started at 5:45. 45 minutes is not enough time to drive across town in heavy traffic and keep my sanity. It's just not worth $75.

Anyway, I got back to my car (which they did at least validate my parking ticket for, I would have been really angry if I had to pay to park on top of everything else) and called Ryan. I didn't mean to but I started to cry. I hate being female sometimes. You try to be tough but estrogen kicks in and the tears flow at inopportune times. Anyway, the happy ending is that being the wonderful husband he is, he went out and bought different kinds of gourmet chocolate and surprised me with a "tasting" for me at home. Reason # 2 million of why I love him, is the little things he thinks of to do.