Ending 2018 with a BANG!

Let's end 2018 with a little humour which I understand can help us forget some of the problems and setbacks each of us may have encountered in 2018.

July 12, 2018: the Joiner family flies into Paris with minimalist baggage and a plan to travel for 3 weeks each of us with a small back pack and a small tote of sorts. Oh, and that extra bag holding presents for our close friends in France and Spain, various medication and the extra mattress for the boys if one of the AirBnB's is smaller than advertised.

The RER train into Paris? No problem.

The Metro to our AirBnB neighbourhood? No problem.

Finding a nice street-side bistro to have lunch once we got out of the Metro? No problem.

While eating, we heard a really loud BANG! We were startled and assumed that some of the scaffolding we passed on the way to the bistro had fallen. Worrisome? Yes. Then we noticed all the people stretching their heads to see what was happening. Then we saw all these people running. Lunch was great so we continued to enjoy.

Walking to the AirBnB after lunch, my wife noticed that we were missing a bag. Yes, that "extra bag". We counted to 12 (6 people x 2 bags each) multiple times but just could not find that elusive 13. I retraced our steps to find it. No luck. Oh well, let's get settled in our AirBnB and then we can look for it again, I said.

A couple of hours later, my daughter and I went on the "bag finding adventure". We had very little hope that we would find the bag. Alas, as we retraced our steps and what happened since we left the Metro, it all made sense and I knew what happened to that bag. After all, my wife and I had lived in Paris for two years and we had experience with this. I told my daughter to just keep up with me as I continued retracing our steps but I knew where we would find the bag if we would find it at all. We walked to the top of the Metro and alas there was bag 13! It was a little worse for wear from having BEEN BLOWN UP BY THE PARIS POLICE! Yes, when we stopped at the top of the Metro, we looked around to find a bistro and then walked away each with our 2 personal bags and everyone forgot about that bag 13 that did not belong to anyone in particular. The Paris police of course blow up unattended bags.

So this is the lesson that our family learned that day: shared accountability is no accountability. This is true for all aspects of life that we should all remember.

Let me tell you that each of our family members, like camp counselors with kids, counted to 12 numerous times a day for each of our remaining vacation days in Europe!

The best part: after so much travel and spending so much money on this trip, my 10 year old son's favourite part of the trip is bag 13 being blown-up by the Paris police.

Have a great 2019! Remember to smile as much as possible when facing setbacks or problems as you may eventually consider those to be precious moments.