Date: June 17th, 2010
June 17th has a lot of significance in my family. More directly important to me is the fact that its my parents' anniversary. Granted I wasn't there for the big show (ok, I was about seven years late for the big show), its still nice to see them be mushy for five minutes once a year. My parents are, generally speaking, otherwise disinclined to public shows of rom-com style affection.
This year, my folks were celebrating their love (ok, gross) up at the lake. The lake, more specifically Lake Ponemah in Fenton, is almost always my Thursday night crash pad. And by crash pad I mean that I go chill with my parents. And by chill with my parents I mean, well, chill with my parents. I'm a nerd. Learn to deal. Since that is almost always my Thursday night plan, I was a little surprised when my phone started buzzing as I was leaving Lansing for the weekend.
Turns out celebrating at the lake is a nifty idea, unless you've left your anniversary present in Ann Arbor (45 minutes away). Its not like nobody would've noticed either. There are only two people getting presents. It isn't like Christmas (ie: the yearly willy nilly super gift-tastic free-for-all). Now, I don't know about you, but an eight hour day is something I find pretty tiring. I engaged in the obligatory griping before getting on the road to Ann Arbor to pick up my mom's present and bring it to the lake.
I had fully planned on playing the "but work is hard" card, but one thing my mom said changed my mind. "I bail you out all the time - you've never had to bail me out before". I started to argue and the realized that she's absolutely right. My parents are like my own personal clean-up crew. Forgot your homework? No problem, we're on the way. Need 200 brownies by tomorrow and its almost midnight? Coming up honey. Need someone to drive a carload of screaming high school girls to a volleyball game two counties over? Dad to the rescue!
My parents are freaking superheros. So, lemme ask you, if freaking Superman came up to you and said "Hey, Timmy (for the purposes of this exercise, your name is Timmy), I need your help. Without you, I could be in real trouble". Do you say "screw off, Superman, I'm busy"? Hell no, you don't! So I sucked it up and drove to Ann Arbor before heading up to Fenton. My mom had gotten my dad this gorgeous statue that I wrapped and carried up to Fenton for him to unwrap.
I had the most amusing feeling as I was driving up. I felt like a kid who feels like an adult. I don't know if that makes sense to anyone, but lemme see if I can describe it. See, when I started my job, I felt the weight of responsibility of dealing with clients and people who have real needs. I felt like an adult. When I did the Peeps Photo Contest a couple months back, I felt like a kid. It was silly and cute and fun, without much adult thought required. But this... well, I had that sense of "wow, mom and dad needed my help with something".
I suppose, on some level, that should be embarrassing, but to heck with it. I already admitted I'm a nerd. And I'm the nerd who saved, umm, an anniversary. Yeah, that's probably not going to become a movie of the week any time soon.
No comments :
Post a Comment