You Can't Pick 'Em
My parents are fine people, sterling characters, all that, but I see now that when I'm with them it's like I'm going on a series of bad dates. They go on and on about things I don't care about, and they really don't "get" me in the way friends do. Sometimes we have a reasonably nice time together, they way you do on a date when the opposite party is amiable and pleasant enough, even if you know nothing will come of it. At other times, you're just aching for that check to come so you can grab your coat and make your getaway.
Which brings me to the subject of last night. My niece is going to London for a semester in a few days, so we had a family dinner to see her off. My parents came in, sat down, and proceeded to attempt to be helpful by offering the niece advice on how to get from Heathrow to town. "Don't take a taxi," my mom said. "It's too expensive." A discussion ensued on how many miles the trip is. Then the talk turned to how a taxi might be viable if someone else on the plane were going to London too. This struck me as likely enough—of the 300 or so people on the plane, very few were likely to be staying at the airport for duration of their visit to England—but soon enough the subject of taking a bus was in the process of being examined in its turn.
It was like when your date insists on recounting every scene from some movie he or she saw. On and on, as if Heathrow were the edge of civilization and London some fabled semimythical exotic land that might be discovered after a difficult and dangerous journey through an uncharted wilderness. On and on, like we were Victorian explorers debating whether Lake Victoria was or was not the source of the Nile. It always happens that I lose it at some point, and the point had come. I decided to take matters firmly in hand and close the discussion on how to get from the airport into London. I leaned forward.
"Look," I said, " I really think we've spent enough time on this, and I have every confidence that she'll be able to get from Heathrow to town with no trouble at all. There's a Tube station right in the airport, for Christ's sake."
My mom blandly riposted that there were also the bags to be considered—you had to get the bags into town too. I had no counterargument to that—if you don't bring the bags with you from the airport, there's not much point in having brought them across the Atlantic Ocean in the first place—so I just sagged back into my chair.
The evening ground on. At one point my dad said he'd heard the astronomer guy on the local public radio station report that even though it was technically still summer, the winter constellations were already visible.
"Really?" I asked. "So are they early this year, or what?"
He just stared at me with the blank expression that tells you the person across the table doesn't understand your sense of humor and never will. Sigh! I sagged back into my chair again and simply waited for the evening to be over. They're good parents, like I say. Fine people. Just very bad dates.
Which brings me to the subject of last night. My niece is going to London for a semester in a few days, so we had a family dinner to see her off. My parents came in, sat down, and proceeded to attempt to be helpful by offering the niece advice on how to get from Heathrow to town. "Don't take a taxi," my mom said. "It's too expensive." A discussion ensued on how many miles the trip is. Then the talk turned to how a taxi might be viable if someone else on the plane were going to London too. This struck me as likely enough—of the 300 or so people on the plane, very few were likely to be staying at the airport for duration of their visit to England—but soon enough the subject of taking a bus was in the process of being examined in its turn.
It was like when your date insists on recounting every scene from some movie he or she saw. On and on, as if Heathrow were the edge of civilization and London some fabled semimythical exotic land that might be discovered after a difficult and dangerous journey through an uncharted wilderness. On and on, like we were Victorian explorers debating whether Lake Victoria was or was not the source of the Nile. It always happens that I lose it at some point, and the point had come. I decided to take matters firmly in hand and close the discussion on how to get from the airport into London. I leaned forward.
"Look," I said, " I really think we've spent enough time on this, and I have every confidence that she'll be able to get from Heathrow to town with no trouble at all. There's a Tube station right in the airport, for Christ's sake."
My mom blandly riposted that there were also the bags to be considered—you had to get the bags into town too. I had no counterargument to that—if you don't bring the bags with you from the airport, there's not much point in having brought them across the Atlantic Ocean in the first place—so I just sagged back into my chair.
The evening ground on. At one point my dad said he'd heard the astronomer guy on the local public radio station report that even though it was technically still summer, the winter constellations were already visible.
"Really?" I asked. "So are they early this year, or what?"
He just stared at me with the blank expression that tells you the person across the table doesn't understand your sense of humor and never will. Sigh! I sagged back into my chair again and simply waited for the evening to be over. They're good parents, like I say. Fine people. Just very bad dates.
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