My mother is coming to visit for a few days. This is a happy occasion. The only unhappy part about it is that I am supposed to go downtown and pick her up from the bus station. I am always nervous about driving downtown. All those one way streets, all those people with briefcases, all the panhandlers, all the government workers running here and there. Supposedly on VERY important errands involving shuffling VERY important papers from one location to another. These people are paid large sums of money to do these errands. They work for me. I don’t get paid anything. But that’s all right, I know how to bake bread and milk goats, grow my own food, and write poems. I just happened to have been born 200 years too late. This is not my fault. It’s just a freak of nature.
I always assume everyone else knows exactly where they are going and I am the only country bumpkin wandering around in circles. But occasionally I see a group of men in corduroy pants and knitted vests with LL Bean shoes and backpacks and I realize I’m not alone. The geologists are in town for a budget hearing or some such nonsense. They keep very close together like a pack of coyotes trying to keep their wits about them between crosswalks that beep and talk to you, telling you when to walk and don’t walk. These guys are used to wide open spaces where they can walk wherever they want to, poor things. It puts them completely off their stride. Especially when they start gawking at the tall buildings and pointing at things instead of watching where they are going. It is a small measure of comfort for me to see them. Then I don’t feel so bad when the guy behind me honks his horn so I will decide already if I am turning left or right at the next intersection.
I have decided not to even attempt to find a parking space near the bus station. (Near means three blocks away) I have told my mother to wait just outside the entrance and I’ll do a drive by. I am to open the front and back doors on her side of the car and she is supposed to toss her suitcase in the back seat and then jump into the front seat while the car is still moving. My plan is to speed up quickly enough to close both of the doors. It’s a sort of drive by maternal pick up maneuver. I think it’s doable. As long as there aren’t too many taxis parked in front of the bus station. This I cannot control. If this happens several trips around the block may be required and I told her to be prepared for this contingency.(I’ll wave lovingly as I go by . . .Hi Mom !)
The drive home is a piece of cake, I just take the longest way possible with the highest number of stop lights to avoid the freeway on a Friday afternoon.
Isn’t it funny? I so often hear people say , “When I retire and finally have the time, I would just love to travel.” These people clearly do not have any idea what they are talking about. Traveling is more stressful than almost any job I know of.
In spite of all my fears, I will brave the downtown traffic because I don’t want my mother down there after dark. She’s sure to get arrested for whacking someone over the head with her purse. So I don’t care how many times I have to drive around the block, or how many government workers I have to run over… I mean dodge, or how many discombobulated geologists may walk right in front of my moving vehicle. . ..
I WILL collect the Mother.
I am SUCH a good daughter, don’t you think ?