Saturday 29 December 2012

Yes Virginia there is a Santa Claus …


The Sunday before Christmas was 42c in Adelaide. 

 It was the day we had to leave the Caravan park at the beach which would have been sad had we not been lucky enough to have the use of Simone's parent's house in town (while they were at their beach-house) with it's a/c.  Packing up the van when it's already 32c at 8.00 a.m. in the VICIOUS sun isn't fun either but before we even hopped out of bed there was a text message from Cirque du Soleil to ask how we enjoyed OVO last Friday night?   Er … the tickets I bought for my sister were for NExT Friday night … weren't they?  Ooops - no they weren't - I had bought them for the wrong Friday!!!  We only had two gifts to buy for my family (secret Santa or Kris Kringle - whatever it's called); one from each of us -  so I needed to fix this so as not to look like the ditsy sister (that we all know I am).  

So after we packed up the van (in the heat) I drove to Le Chapiteau which in Adelaide is in the middle of a dusty parkland. By now it's up to 37C and while I wait for it to open, I sit in the car cooking because there was a horrid hot dusty wind blowing outside and there is no shade and I don't want to pollute the atmosphere… I was at boiling point when they didn't open on time and after alerting the security guard to open the gates I was ready to march right up to the box office and be very cross.  But the girls at the box office were very nice and they were from Montreal and Toronto and they said it was absolutely no problem that I mixed up the tickets and they would just reassign them for next Friday night and was there anything else they could do for me? So I said no, and blessed them and wished them a merry Christmas (it was the least I could do) and promised to write to Monsieur Laliberté and recommend them for saint-hood and I got back into my (er Simone's) sweltering car and realized it is true … there is a Santa Claus Virginia.  

But I also knew what else was true - that if those girls were Australian or Cirque du Soleil wasn't Canadian I would never have had those tickets changed … if not at all, certainly not so easily.  Australian retailers/companies (in general) just don't think like that…

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