My chin is cold. But that has nothing to do with yesterday's post. As soon as I get the pictures developed, I'm gonna post what I look like without any facial hair. That is if the pictures come out. By the way, I really don't like the way I look without facial hair, so I hope you realize what kind of privledge it is to have the chance at seeing my chin, or lack there of....

So, tell me. Am I inconsiderate? Am I a total ass? Do I have a pox upon my face or is the black plague resurfacing at my house? I wonder sometimes because it really seems like my house is the place to avoid going, and we are the folks not to see. Oh, where to begin....

My father-in-law has been making plans to come visit us for a while now. Most of the plans have been finalized for at least 3 weeks. Then, some college buddies emailed to let us know they'd be in town at the same time as my father-in-law. So I emailed them back and told them that because of the family visitor, we'd didn't know when, but we'd make some time to see them. They are staying with another friend of ours.

Well, as the days drew nearer, plans became more final. My father-in-law was going to stay in Beaumont Sunday night, and drive the rest of the way Monday morning. This was fine, we could see our friends on Sunday. But, I had to work and the wife had to strike her set. That's not really a big deal. Everyone could just come over to our place after the wife gets back, and I'll get home as soon as I can and we'd have a great time. That, on Saturday, is what the plan was.

My father-in-law couldn't get in touch with us on Saturday to get directions to our place and he left a message telling us he would call when he got into Beaumont so we could give him final directions. We were very busy on Saturday with my show, my family in town and the wife's show too. LONG DAY that was...but I digress.

While I'm at work on Sunday, the wife calls and lets me know that she has a flat tire. No big deal. Just put the spare on to get home and I'd bring the tire to get fixed Monday before work. It's not like we were planning to drive anywhere in it because everyone was supposed to come to our apartment. Side note: the tire is fixed.

Later, I get another call from the wife. She was at home, but everyone wanted us to go to where they were instead. She told them about the flat tire and didn't want to drive the car. They said that they could come pick her up and I could just drive there from work. Which would have been an o.k. solution, if we didn't have to wait by the phone for my father-in-law to call. I would be rather rude for us to leave him hanging on directions.

So, I call my friends and tell them that we can't come over until he calls and who knows when that will be. And I tell them that they are more than welcome to come over, as we originally planned. Suddenly, our place is too small to accomodate everyone, we live too far away, and we don't have enough places for people to sit. Nevermind that we have a couch that sits 3, a love seat that sits 2, an easy chair and a footstool that I generally sit on most of the time I'm home. That's a grand total of 7 places for people to sit. Using my fingers, there's seven adults. WOW! just enough space to comfortably fit everyone. Well, what about the 2 kids? Well, we have a kid of our own and his room has tons of things kids love to play with, even a Playstation 2 just like the one where they were staying. The only thing is you have to do is go outside to smoke.

Well, Patrick had two loads of laundry to do and Jody would have to leave early because of work the next day. So, all of them couldn't come over. I can understand Jody having to leave early for work, I have to be at work for 7:30am myself (not to mention get a flat tire fixed before hand). Laundry, I can understand, too. I do laundry myself. When I have laundry to do and people I want to see, I put the first load to wash and then start it drying. Next, I start the second load washing and leave to go see people. When I get home, I fluff the first load and fold it and put the second load to dry while I sleep. Or have my wife who has to leave early finish the drying when she gets home. Most of it's for her anyway...

Look, I'm very sorry we didn't get to see our friends, but the BOTTOM LINE is we felt we were in a position where we needed to stay by our phone. There's no reason why they (you) couldn't have come to our place, ESPECIALLY when you're willing to drive all the way over here to pick us up. I'm sorry we're so inconsiderate.

By the way, my father-in-law finally called us this morning. He's probably pulling up to the house as I type. We didn't sleep well last night worrying about him and he's sorry he didn't call earlier.

Update (07/05/02):

***I just wanted to thank Jody for being so gracious to volunteer not to come over so "the party" could have ended up at our place without everyone having to leave early. He said he could stay home and rest and everyone else could stay up forever at our place. I should have said something about that in the original post, but I didn't and I wanted to correct that because Jody rocks.***