Monday 5 May 2008

Let's Hijack a Medi-Van

Return airfare from Heathrow to O'Hare for my prospective dates (21 July-12 August) has dropped below 500 pounds, so I'm starting to have hopes and make plans. In March, the best thing I thought I could do for my father from afar was have him sent Season 3 (Series 3 for you Brits) of Battlestar Galactica, as Mom had bought a new laptop and he could catch up on what he'd missed. Now I'm thinking it's been fifteen-plus months since my father was somewhere besides a hospital, rehab centre, or the family home at 220 Arlington Drive, and I'd like to take him out for a nice dinner. In the past, we've all enjoyed wonderful dinners at Biaggi's, and as it's on the fancy side as local restaurants go, it seems appropriate for the occasion.

So I called my parents tonight and ran the idea by each of them. For my father, as usual, the issue was money: "But it's fifty dollars for those vans." For my mother, predictably, the issue was practicality: "I think the wheelchair vans only do medical trips." This conjunction--the limits of insufficient money, the limits of what was practical--were depressing as a teenager, but I wasn't going to be brought down by that tonight. "We'll hijack one," I said to Mom. "We'll get a medi-van and make it take us to Biaggi's rather than the hospital." At this my mother burst out with a gleeful laugh: maybe we could, it said to me. Let's do it.

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