Get a little action in!

Greetings, my fellow port swillers!

Rayther than clogging up the post below with additional updates (which see – and you’ll need to for this post to make any sense), I’ll start a new one this evening to state that the other, other operation – thanks to additional negotiations between Mrs. R and his mother – is now for Middle Gel’s friend to catch an Uber ride to the airport tomorrow morning.  All I have to do is make sure he’s up in time.

Yes, this means I don’t have to drive an hour and a half round-trip in the rain, but at the same time I find it highly irritating.

First, a bit of background: Mrs. R has been away in Flarduh for some time tending to her dying grandmother and is scheduled to arrive home tomorrow.  In the meantime, Eldest, although home from school, is hanging out this evening with her best friend from high school.  Middle Gel and her visitor friend are down in the basement playing Mario Cart and watching trashy superhero movies.  Youngest, who dumped her boyfriend yesterday, says she vants to be alooone, but I can nonetheless hear her in her room yackiting on the phone with her friends.

So earlier this evening, banished from his accustomed haunts and deprived of any companionship except Daisy, the Special Needs Dog and the occasional cat or three, Ol’ Robbo settled down in his bedroom with his laptop, a Dave Barry book, and a glass of wine.  And he had just been laughing himself silly over Hitler Rants parodies on Yootube and Dave’s take on cyberspace when Mrs. R and Middle Gel dropped the bombshell about Ol’ Robbo having to take her friend to BWI at Oh Dark Thirty.  (Again, which see update below.)

After fuming for a few minutes, I said to myself, “Self? Fine! We’ll do it.  Quit whining, suck it up, and prepare.”

And frankly, that should have been that.  I issued general instructions to those involved and then started getting ready for an early bedtime.

Then the phone rang.

It was Mrs. Robbo.  As I say above, she’d been talking with friend’s mother and there was now a change of plan:  He’s taking an Uber tomorrow so I don’t have to drive him.

Now you would think that Ol’ Robbo would be happy in that he is no longer saddled with having to do the drive and you’d be correct to an extent.  At the same time, though, this kind of chopping and changing and last minute dithering drives me absolutely batty.   As far as I’m concerned, pick a plan and, as long as it remains viable, stick to it.  Even if it means that I have to do the heavy lifting.  After all, that’s what I’m here for.

Perhaps this is a Guy Thing.  (Are we still allowed to say “Guy Thing”?  Or is that part of the Patriarchy that must be smashed by the Cultural Marxists? Bad, baaaaad, Robbo! You are nekulturny! Get your coat – we are going for a ride.)

On the other hand, perhaps it’s just me.

Long and the short of it, I simply want the friend to be gone (much as I like him), Mrs. Robbo to be home, and the general routine reestablished.  Is that too much to ask?

UPDATE: Well.  Sorry for that.  All better now.  Friend has gone home, Mrs. Robbo is back, the whaddayacallit is on the wing and the thingumby is on the thorn.  And because I haven’t been able to get it out of my head since making that “I vant to be alooone” crack, here’s a little fun for you:

(I know, I know – Swanson, not Garbo.  But still.  We used to watch this show all the time when I was a kid.  To this day, I cannot see the name Max without wanting to pronounce it “Mex“.)