Turns out S isn't going to Iraq after all. You might not even have known she was going to go in the first place, but she was. And now she isn't. This whole Syria quag has elevated the threat-level in the Middle East or something like that, so her trip is off. I can't say I'm disappointed. It was only going to be for a week, and she would be in a guarded compound the entire time (safer than a lot of neighborhoods in any major city in the US), but still. Iraq is Iraq.
One thing that's funny is how S, whenever she has to go on a work trip to a country with a bad reputation, always tries to downplay the safety concerns by telling me things that don't mean anything to people outside her field. For instance, her thing with going to Iraq was, "It's just Erbil." Oh!... Okay... it's just a city I've never heard of* in a country we've been invading for the last decade, where a non-trivial percentage of the population thinks killing random Americans is religiously justified. Gotcha. And here I was worried. I'm sure "It's just Erbil" is very meaningful to people who work in international development but for a guy whose knowledge of geography comes almost exclusively from studying an atlas made in 1964 as a 10-year old (Hey, there's a New Mexico.), it doesn't do a whole lot.
S's canceled trip set off a chain reaction that has turned into a near farce. S's mom and aunt are currently staying with us. The plan was for them to stay through next week while S was in Iraq, so that they could help out with the little guy -- fill in the gaps between daycare (Lil' S started daycare last week) and my work schedule that S usually fills. Now that we don't need them to do that, they want to go back to South Carolina this weekend. But there's a problem. S's aunt left her passport back in SC, which is going to make taking a plane difficult, being that she has no ID, isn't an American citizen, and can't speak English. (If you're wondering how they got here in the first place, they drove from SC with S's dad who drove back last week.) The easy solution should have been to have S's dad overnight the passport from SC via certified mail. But there's a problem. The passport is in a safe, and the keys to the safe are, you guessed it, with S's mom here in DC. See, what I mean about the farce part?
By the way, I completely understand this type of forgetfulness. I do shit like this all the time. (See the time I had to call a locksmith to get my stuff out of my gym locker.) I am certainly not judging here.
So now, there are a five options: 1) Rent a car, 2) Overnight the key, so that S's dad can overnight the passport, 3) Take a bus, 4) Take a plane and set up an "interview" with the airline before hand so that they can verify S's aunt's identity, 5) Have S drive her mom and aunt to North Carolina where they will meet S's dad who will take them to South Carolina. 1) is out because S's mom doesn't drive long distances and her aunt doesn't drive at all. 2) is out because I'm not sure why. I never really got a straight answer from S, and she speaks to her family in Kannada, so I can't always figure out the dynamics of the situation. 3) is out because S doesn't feel comfortable putting them on bus, especially one involving a transfer. 4) is out because the language barrier seems too formidable to even try it. This leaves option 5). So S is going to drive them to NC tomorrow.
And this is where I get put in a lose-lose position. Either I have to take care of Lil' S the entire day by myself without a break, which at his age is a nightmare. Or I have to be a deadbeat dad and have S take him with her, which, by the way, she is willing to do. But then I'm basically saying I'd rather have my kid sit in a car for six hours, while I goof around on my computer than take care of him. That doesn't seem right. Like I said, lose-lose.
And my whole thing is, wait, what's wrong with option 2 and option 3 again? You know they have certified mail... and the buses these days are very nice... But it's not worth pushing the issue with S and potentially causing marital discord. I'll just suck it up and take care of my kid. Yes, I am a hero.
Until next time...
*Actually, I knew how to spell Erbil without looking it up, so it must have been somewhere in the recesses of my mind.
One thing that's funny is how S, whenever she has to go on a work trip to a country with a bad reputation, always tries to downplay the safety concerns by telling me things that don't mean anything to people outside her field. For instance, her thing with going to Iraq was, "It's just Erbil." Oh!... Okay... it's just a city I've never heard of* in a country we've been invading for the last decade, where a non-trivial percentage of the population thinks killing random Americans is religiously justified. Gotcha. And here I was worried. I'm sure "It's just Erbil" is very meaningful to people who work in international development but for a guy whose knowledge of geography comes almost exclusively from studying an atlas made in 1964 as a 10-year old (Hey, there's a New Mexico.), it doesn't do a whole lot.
S's canceled trip set off a chain reaction that has turned into a near farce. S's mom and aunt are currently staying with us. The plan was for them to stay through next week while S was in Iraq, so that they could help out with the little guy -- fill in the gaps between daycare (Lil' S started daycare last week) and my work schedule that S usually fills. Now that we don't need them to do that, they want to go back to South Carolina this weekend. But there's a problem. S's aunt left her passport back in SC, which is going to make taking a plane difficult, being that she has no ID, isn't an American citizen, and can't speak English. (If you're wondering how they got here in the first place, they drove from SC with S's dad who drove back last week.) The easy solution should have been to have S's dad overnight the passport from SC via certified mail. But there's a problem. The passport is in a safe, and the keys to the safe are, you guessed it, with S's mom here in DC. See, what I mean about the farce part?
By the way, I completely understand this type of forgetfulness. I do shit like this all the time. (See the time I had to call a locksmith to get my stuff out of my gym locker.) I am certainly not judging here.
So now, there are a five options: 1) Rent a car, 2) Overnight the key, so that S's dad can overnight the passport, 3) Take a bus, 4) Take a plane and set up an "interview" with the airline before hand so that they can verify S's aunt's identity, 5) Have S drive her mom and aunt to North Carolina where they will meet S's dad who will take them to South Carolina. 1) is out because S's mom doesn't drive long distances and her aunt doesn't drive at all. 2) is out because I'm not sure why. I never really got a straight answer from S, and she speaks to her family in Kannada, so I can't always figure out the dynamics of the situation. 3) is out because S doesn't feel comfortable putting them on bus, especially one involving a transfer. 4) is out because the language barrier seems too formidable to even try it. This leaves option 5). So S is going to drive them to NC tomorrow.
And this is where I get put in a lose-lose position. Either I have to take care of Lil' S the entire day by myself without a break, which at his age is a nightmare. Or I have to be a deadbeat dad and have S take him with her, which, by the way, she is willing to do. But then I'm basically saying I'd rather have my kid sit in a car for six hours, while I goof around on my computer than take care of him. That doesn't seem right. Like I said, lose-lose.
And my whole thing is, wait, what's wrong with option 2 and option 3 again? You know they have certified mail... and the buses these days are very nice... But it's not worth pushing the issue with S and potentially causing marital discord. I'll just suck it up and take care of my kid. Yes, I am a hero.
Until next time...
*Actually, I knew how to spell Erbil without looking it up, so it must have been somewhere in the recesses of my mind.
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