The Long Way Home

I have 3 young receptionists that work the evening shift. My morning receptionist took the day off so she replaced herself with one of the evening girls. This girl was on vacation last week and should have returned home Saturday. When it got to be 9:30 am and she had not shown up I became concerned. It was not like her. I called her cell phone and she immediately answered. I asked where she was and if everything was OK. She said she was in Dubai. Her flight had been delayed for a day and she was hoping to board a plane within the hour. Now I needed a contingency plan. I called the next girl and she was working at her second job. I had one more girl to call. This one said that she would come in right away. Great! It was 9:30 am and she lives 12 miles away, so I was figuring that she would arrive in 1/2 hour. I was wrong. Four hours later when she walked in, I asked what happened. She said her car was in the shop so she took a bus to the train station, took the southern railroad line into the city, backtracked on the northern railroad line to the town we work in and took a taxi to the office. I looked at her like she was crazy. I asked her why she just didn't take a taxi the whole way as it would have taken 15 minutes and cost the same. She said she never thought of that. This is the future of America.