When my daughter said she would not be able to join us on our annual visit to her grandparents because she had to present a project in college before a panel of very strict professors, I thought little of it beyond the disappointment of my parents at her absence. “I’ll miss seeing them,” she saw us off with hugs and kisses, “but you guys have a good time.”
Elaborate arrangements had been made for her stay at home in our absence — everything from planned menus to a chalked-out schedule for the friends who would sleep over at night to a chauffeur-on-call — yet we couldn’t help but feel guilty about leaving her alone. “Don’t you worry about me,” she said to us on the phone the first evening we were away, “I’ll just have a few friends over so I don’t feel lonely.”
She called a half-hour later to ask if we would mind if the boys had a few beers, and we said there were some chilled bottles in the fridge, and she laughed and said they might fall short because, what with one thing and another, there were some 30 people who were coming home to dinner that night. So, my wife called home and told the staff to lay the table and bring out the napkins and make sure there was something to eat and enough ice.
And then my daughter called back to speak to our son and ask about the music speakers, and I worried that the neighbours might complain about the noise, so my wife placed a few calls to ask friends to check discreetly on the decibel levels. When I called my daughter at 10 that evening and did not hear any earth-shattering music in the background, I asked with some relief, “So, how did your party go?” And she replied, “I’ll tell you tomorrow morning dad, nobody’s arrived so far, but they’ll be here soon and there’s still lots of stuff to do.” I didn’t sleep much that night.
The following morning, she called to say that a few friends were coming home to work on the college project, so my wife instructed the cook on what was to be served for lunch, which my daughter rejected in favour of takeaway pizzas. And that evening, some other friends came home for a pajama party — not, as we had planned, two or three of them, but a good deal more, requiring beds to be made for them in all the bedrooms and in the living room — and they laughed and messed up the kitchen with everything from instant noodles to toast, with ketchup to chocolate; so messy it had to be thrown away and clogged the kitchen sink and caused the flat to flood.
The next day, I fretted because she had not yet finished her project, but she said it was cool, she’d work on it overnight. But since her friends hadn’t finished theirs either on account of partying with my daughter, they thought it might be a nice idea to work on it together. So, they wound up back in our home again, and though they must have worked at least a little, the bedroom, when we got home, was littered with leftover ice-cream and empty chips packets, tossed shoes and clothes, unmade beds and strewn pillows, hairbrushes, pins and mascara sticks, music CDs and movie DVDs, girlie magazines and discarded books.
We finished cleaning up just as our daughter got back from college and headed straight for bed. “Don’t you want to spend time with us?” her mother asked, hurt. “Later,” said my daughter, “not now, I’ve barely had time from running your house while you’ve had yourselves an easy one on your holiday.”