My parents came to visit this weekend on their way down to Florida, and it was like spending time with the white rabbit from Alice in Wonderland.
First of all, this was the first time they were taking the auto train from here to Florida, and my father had been reading about it on the Amtrak website. I am sooo glad we taught him to surf the net. Next time we have a brilliant idea like that, we should just slam our hands in a door repeatedly. It would be less painful.
"It says you can check in as early as 11:30," he started in on Saturday about fifteen minutes after they arrived.
"But the train doesn't leave until 4...on Monday,". I pointed out. "Why do you want to sit around the station for several hours?"
"I want to make sure we get the 7pm seating for dinner," he informed me, "otherwise, we'll be stuck eating at either 5 or 9."
"So it's first come, first serve?"
"I don't know, but I want to be there early, so we get the 7pm seating for dinner."
Okay. Got it. You want to eat at 7.
"I really want to get there early," he broached the subject again about an hour later. "5pm is too early to eat and 9 is too late."
"What time do they board?". Tim tried a different tack.
"2pm, but I want to make sure we get the 7 o'clock dinner seating," my father stressed.
"So you reserve dinner when you check in?" Tim tried again to clarify.
"I don't know, but 5 is too early and 9 is too late for dinner," said the rainman, er, my father.
"That's a long time to sit in the station," sometimes Tim didn't have the sense God gave a turnip.
Stop. Roll over and play dead. Give up. I tried to communicate telepathically with Tim, but had no more success getting him to listen to me that way than I have when I actually speak out loud to him.
"I'd go around 1," he offered, "otherwise, it'll be a really long day."
"I don't know," my father seemed to waver for a moment, but recovered. "I'd hate to get there too late to get the 7 o'clock seating."
He actually managed to not bring up the subject for at least another hour or two and then only 86 or 87 times more an hour for the next two days.
Each time, we tried to lure him off topic by steering the conversation toward some other aspect of the journey.
"So, does arriving early affect the order in which your car comes off the train at the end?"
"It says it doesn't because of the way they load them on, but it does affect whether you get the 7pm seating."
Shoot me.
"Do you want to order a Netflix movie so you can watch it on your iPad? They have wi-fi on board, right?"
"If we get the 7pm seating, we won't have time for a movie afterwards, so we'll just watch a TV show. That's why I want to get there early."
Shoot me now.
"What do they serve for dinner anyway?"
"I don't know. I couldn't find that on the website, but it says they have three seatings: 5, 7, or 9."
Okay, one bullet for the both of us. We'll stand really, really close.
And while my father was obsessed with getting to the train early on Monday, my mother was just as obsessed with getting to church early on Sunday.
"What time is mass?" she questioned on Saturday night.
"All different times. Sleep as late as you want, and we'll go from there," I told her.
She was up at 7.
"What's the mass schedule?" she wanted to know. "What time do we have to leave? I don't want to be late."
We decided on 10:30 mass at a church less than five minutes away. Rose offered to drive, so at 10:10, my mother decided that Rose was late and she would wait outside for her.
"It's kind of breezy and chilly," I warned, "why don't we just watch out the window?"
"She might park the car and get out before we can get to the door, and then we'll be really late."
Okay, you and dad need to get either a hobby or a prescription for an incredibly powerful drug.
"It's 10:17," she fretted as we stood at the bottom of the driveway getting blown apart. "I don't want to be late."
"I know, but the church is less than five minute away," I tried to soothe her.
"It's 10:20, we're going to be late," she pronounced exactly three minutes later.
Maybe a hobby and a drug.
"It's 10:22. We'll never make it on time."
Hobby, drug and smash the watch.
Fortunately, Rose arrived at 10:25, just as I was getting ready to perform CPR...on myself because my blood pressure shot up sixty points every time Big Ben ticked off another second.
I am happy to say that my mother was not late...much.
I wish I could say the same for my father. Sadly, by the time he stopped for gas on the way to the train, he was late. They were stuck with the dreaded 5pm dinner slot.
"I told you so," he pouted over the phone. "I knew I should have been here early. Now, we'll have too much time to kill just sitting around after dinner."
As opposed to the time sitting around before? I wanted to, but I didn't say it.
Hobby, drug, gun, one bullet.
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