Probably Should Cancel It

An appointment for my older one to see a doctor in Lido at 6:00PM.  “You have the car.  Are you on top of this?” I message my wife.  I’m brushed off.  “Yes.  I handle it.”  OK.  Sounds good to me.  I assumed they were long since on their way, when they streamed through front door at 5:15PM.   “Yes, well, I needed to drop things off here.  No.  I’ll need the car tonight.  I guess we should call a car or cancel it.”  Voices rise.  Fingers point.  We probably should cancel it, even though there will be a cost.  But instead, I call a DiDi and look for my coat.   I've decided this is something that will happen.

We are going to be rather late.  This will certainly be the Doctor’s last appointment of the day.  The front desk is closed for the night.  I don’t have her direct line.  I wait and wait on hold at the main switch board till I get a confirm on the street address and ask the lady to forward on the message to our Doctor that we’ll be . . . "about ten-fifteen minutes late.”  We will be much later than that.  But this seems the reasonable hedge.  If she wants to leave before we get there, I would certainly understand and until we arrive, there is nothing we can do. 

My daughter is lost in music, waxing a Marlene Dietrich’ vibe.  I send her the address and send her the requisite numbers and suggest that next time she manage this herself.  Then I break out my biography: “The Prophet” and tell myself I won’t keep looking at the time, over and over until we arrive.  When we get there, it will likely be closed.  We’ll likely have to turn right around.  And that is OK.  And if it happens I’ll acknowledge:  yes, we should have just cancelled. 

Trotsky has been having such a long, steady, dignified, in-spite of it all, descent during the last few years of his life.  He’s in Norway.  Stalin’s insane purge-trials are aflame back home.  Everything Trotsky could possibly be blamed for, the weather, the harvest, the Nazis, are all suggested to be his fault.  The Norwegian government, ostensibly socialist, under pressure from the Soviets and pressure from the Nazi’s has decided to expel him.  He tells the ministers responsible to mark his words:  In five years you too shall be refugees from your own country, once the Nazi’s come.  And not for the first time he is correct in his prophecies.  Later, in exile the Norwegian officials all sadly recall and chew upon, “Trotsky’s curse.”

The Doctor waited for us.  Happy ending.  It all worked out.  I shouldn’t have cancelled.  But by now I am very hungry.  There are dozens of hip spots all around this part of town, but Marlene is absolutely not interested.  So we order some burritos by phone, from the return ride home that should get to our place, not long after we arrive.  

Thursday 3/29/18