Lauren was supposed to be here over an hour ago. Where is she? My mother is starting to pout about her hors d’oeuvres going cold (I’m pretty sure they were cold to begin with, but never mind), and that can only mean one thing: Lauren is getting another strike against her name. That’s just what I don’t need, given that we’re meant to be announcing our engagement tonight. So much for festive merriment.
I’m beginning to hope that she’s had a vehicle breakdown, and is in the process of arranging for her car to be towed to a mechanic. That’s one of the few things I can think of that would satisfy my mother as an excuse for being late to pre-Christmas dinner. It’s not too far-fetched a possibility – Lauren was saying just this morning that one of her tyres seems a tad soft, so maybe she’s ended up needing a tyre repair. Close to Preston though she may be, getting a bung tyre sorted is going to tie her up for a couple of hours, and she might not make it to dinner at all – with a valid excuse to boot.
Now that I think about it, it’s actually not very nice, hoping for that to be the case. Still, it’s got to be better than Lauren rocking up ten minutes from now and blithely apologising for ‘running late’. That won’t go down well with my mother at all – oh, no, it won’t. Short of the death of a family member, car troubles are really the only ‘out’ here, and even then my mother will require a receipt from the auto service centre as proof.
The clock’s still ticking, and I still haven’t heard from Lauren. With every passing moment, Lauren is sealing her fate of being despised by her future in-laws… unless, but some stroke of luck, she really does have a bung tyre. All will be revealed soon, but will it be soon enough?