An unexpected trip

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Do you remember when there was a joke t-shirt going around that said: My family (or friend) went on vacation (or to someplace like Cancun) and all I got was this lousy t-shirt. ? Well, while this fad was going on, and it was quite a few years ago, like in the mid-1980's, I had an opportunity to have gotten an even BETTER version of the shirt. I was talking with my brother's girl friend on Sunday about this, and that is what brought it to mind. I have a friend, who, back in the 1980's, was working for an advertizing agency. One of their clients was a tour company who arranged week long "shopping tours" to Ireland. The owner of the tour company had told her that if they ever had a cancellation, they wanted her to go and write up the trip for a travel magazine. So, one Saturday, she was visiting me from Houston and she got a phone call from her mom in Houston. Her boss was looking for her, turned out there was a cancellation, and if she wanted to go she needed to be in Dallas at 3 the next day - packed. And, by the way, she could bring a friend. All either of them had to do was pay about $350 each for the food "ticket". As we went to bed that night, she lay on the spare bed and went through the list of all the people she knew that had passports, and all the people that could take off on short notice. The ONLY problem was that there were no common names on the lists. As she got ready to go through the list a 3rd time, I said: "My mom has a passport, my mom doesn't need to be any place." So, I found a free trip to Ireland for my mother. She had to come up with the money in cash, but she had a friend in town who kept that kind of money - this was during the early days of ATMs and mom didn't have a card back then. She wrote her friend a check and the friend gave her the money - her "gambling" money. My mom was at DFW on time Sunday and winged off to Ireland with my friend. My mom told me that my friend reminded her a lot of me. Except she'd make up silly songs and kept the tour pretty much entertained. My friend told me that my mom reminded her of me (gee I wonder why?) My friend got to kiss the Blarney Stone. My mother got to play a round of golf - I thought it was amusing what she said of the Irish "roughs" - and my mom brought back some really nice gifts for the lot of us. I always said one of those should've been a t-shirt that read: I found a free trip to Ireland for my mother and all I got was this lousy t-shirt.