13 hours

So...it was boyfriend's birthday last week, and the best of plans went horrifically awry when the bloody ash cloud from Chile got in everyone's grill and flights to Sydney were grounded indefinitely. After many emotionally charged texts/phone calls, it was decided that one Doll would 'take one for the team' and catch the train from Brisbane to Sydney; as opposed to possibly not getting out on a flight as planned.
13 hours.
Departed at 7.30am. As follows:

7.30am: I can totally do this - its easy; just get on the train and busy self with daydreams/business plans/drawing/writing/reading/anything to take mind off the time.

7.35am: Have garnered significant attention from the two little girls sitting opposite me.

8.00am: Everyone is sharing their woes at not being able to catch their flights and the subsequent dilemas about being on a train for 13 hours instead.

9.00am: One only gets reception for one's phone when the train stops at stations...in the middle of bushranger country...for about 1 minute...so one must respond to texts which flood in as fast as one's fingers can move.

11.00am: Totally doing manicures!! The two little girls, their Mum, and the old lady behind me; everyone is wearing one of my favourite polishes (and the only one I carry on my person)

LA Moss by Butter. Buy it. It's hell sexy.

12.00pm: 9 hours to go. The flood of texts from boyfriend and best mates helps...but sitting is lame so I'm wandering around chatting with peeps and drinking tea.

1.00pm: For serious. The landscape is beautiful, but saints preserve us...this is the looooong way to do something, for sure. More writing/reading/chatting with the folks.We've made an informal cheer party for eachother...people are losing their minds at an alarming rate so we are all attempting to keep morale high (and taking it in turns to have a brain snap at the ludicrous pace of this bloody train from hell).

3.00pm: 6 hours to go. Imma die on this train. This train is actually going nowhere...conspiracies flood my mind and I'm looking for the hidden cameras...it's surely a scientific/sociological experiment into 'what happens when people have no choice but to submit to the limitations of time'.

4.00pm: The little girls (who have been spending a lot of time with me for 'touch-ups' to their nails) have completely lost their minds over our cruel and unusual incarceration and are biting eachother and their Mum. Everyone's in tears.

5.00pm: Darling has been texting like a madman...4 hours to go. I'm losing the plot.

6.00pm: Start feeling nauseous. A lot.

7.00pm: What kind of bloody train does not have lemonade for stomach-churned passengers!!??

8.00pm: May as well be 500 hours to go...I fantasise about just getting off.

9.00pm: Carnage. Stumble off train, into the arms of a cold Sydney night, gasping for fresh air and swearing to never, ever do this again.

But then, there was this:

Happy Birthday darling one.