I pushed through the end of my work yesterday, because I knew that I was being called upon to do a longish errand. I underestimated how long. I must express gratitude to my wife, who undertook a number of errands–including getting an oil change on the new car we had promised to get as soon as possible–so that I could focus on my work.
The errand was ostensibly to take a son to visit his girlfriend, who is rather demanding and petulant when he is not there even though he tends to be there more than here and has more things he can only accomplish here than there. However, she indicated that if he did not arrive last night she would not come here for Thanksgiving (I’m assuming that since he did arrive, she will come, and that perhaps her reason was more to do with the fact that she will be catching a ride with his brother, whom she does not really know so well). Thus, after numerous delays on everyone’s part, somewhere around nine last night we pulled out of the driveway. It is two hours up and two hours back, although since I would never push the old cars faster than fifty and the new one seems to be able to handle the posted sixty-five on the major roads I expected to shave a bit off that. We lost that bit going up, though, to pit stops along the way. It was after eleven when we reached College Avenue, and almost eleven thirty when we began the return trek.
I will not blame my wife for the next, because in truth I was thinking of suggesting it; however, she initiated the decision without consulting me. Our eldest and his wife (whom we considered our daughter before she was our daughter-in-law) had just moved into their own apartment. There is a rather complicated background here. He had gotten a job that required him to train in Delaware, and so had moved in with her at her mother’s house; then two unexpected things happened: her mother was killed in a car accident, and his job wound up being in Delaware instead of back here. In order to keep the house, they struck a deal with the mother’s boyfriend, who moved into the house and took over a certain amount of management, including putting his name on the lease. Then the older sister moved in, with her boyfriend and her baby and her expected, and the house became rather crowded; at about the same time, our son got a promotion that moved him to another office, which also is not here but happens to be in this state, so he was commuting over an hour each way. The combination of the extended commute and the crowded home prompted them to reorganize, find a job for her up that way, enlist the assistance of yet another of our sons to move in and help with expenses (something he never did here, but he just turned eighteen), and get an apartment.
They moved yesterday. We had too much else to do to help them, but some of the young men who have stayed with us and/or befriended our sons over the years leant a truck, a driver, and some strong arms and backs.
This long story leads back to our drive home. It happens that when we were less than halfway back, we would be passing within a few miles of this new apartment; it happens that they, like us, keep odd hours, and would probably be awake. We called to suggest that as long as we were up this way anyway, we might stop in around twelve thirty to see the place. Oh, guess what–they haven’t eaten and have no food in the new place. We’ll take them out to eat.
Getting to the apartment was easy enough, even simple; we took the seventy-five cent tour, the dollar tour not being available.* Then we climbed in our car and drove out to the highway to find an all-night diner and get some food. We were only about two or three towns away from the diner where my wife and I had our rehearsal dinner, so we went there.
It was closed.
In fact, everything was closed. We drove around for hours looking for a place that was open. We asked a guy in an all night gas station/convenience store, who sent us to a night club and grill, that was closed. We asked the night manager of a twenty-four hour Walgreens drug store, who sent us to a Denny’s twenty minutes away–which had already locked the doors. I was beginning to feel the absurdity of the situation. We live in the boondocks, miles from any major roads, but I can find half a dozen places to eat at any time of night. They live within five miles of the New Jersey Turnpike, Interstate 295, and three other federal or state highways, one of them a mere block away. You can almost smell Philadelphia from their balcony. We spent at least an hour driving around, and had to fill up the gas tank which might otherwise have gotten us home. Eventually I suggested that I knew of a twenty-four hour diner in the next county, the one my mother-in-law frequents.
It was after four by the time we had finished eating, and it was fifteen minutes in the wrong direction to take them home. I pulled into the driveway after five thirty, and while my wife went to bed so she could work tonight, I stayed up to get the youngest to school and then drive one of our houseguests to the hospital for a seven thirty surgical appointment. He was told that it would take four to six hours, so I kept the phone near the bed while I tried to nap starting at eight, ignoring all the calls which woke me which were not about him but answering one from his doctor around ten thirty telling me that he would be released around one, and another from someone else at the hospital saying it would be between one fifteen and one thirty. I pulled myself back out of bed around twelve thirty, set up the coffee but didn’t have any, and drove out to get him (it’s about twenty minutes to that hospital). Then I drove my wife to work, and finally started my new day around three thirty.
I’ve managed to get supper in the oven, and am planning to get to church tonight, but we’ll see how all that goes.
The truck was not finished today. The mechanic is so overworked, he says he’s hoping he can persuade one of his people to come in on Saturday to get some of the projects completed, so it might be back tomorrow–or not, there’s no knowing.
I did get a slice of about half an hour yesterday evening, while waiting for everyone else to be ready to begin this trip, during which I played through seven of the twelve songs Collision will be doing. I’d like to steal a bit of time tonight to do the other five, but I’d also like to write up the sheets for them and do a million other things, so that’s not likely to happen. Also, in a slice of time that was just the wrong size to really do much of anything useful, I started (and later finished) a draft for what might be a new Faith and Gaming article, about whether it’s inappropriate to care about fictional characters or be upset if they die. I don’t have time to figure out how to upload it, or even to download the new page format (the Christian Gamers Guild got a new webmaster a year ago who has moved and redesigned the site), but maybe I’ll get to it eventually.
Speaking of getting to things, I’d better check on dinner.
–M. J. Young
