Snap holiday

Well, I'm on my own again because my father decided to go on holiday, dragging my mother with him.

I can only be thankful that I am past the point of "family holidays", at least in the role of child. My father's holiday-announcing habit was the bane of my summers growing up. Friends would ask what I was doing, and when, and I could only shrug my shoulders and tell them I wouldn't know if I was going away, or where, until a couple of days beforehand at best.

I know people who plan what they're doing a year ahead. Actually, I sometimes suspect my father is one of them, he just doesn't tell anyone else what he's thinking until the last possible moment.

He's like this with going to the movies as well. Other people can suggest things to see, and convenient times to see them. There's no way of knowing this information has registered until 20 minutes before the movie is due to start, which is when he will appear in the hall and ask Mum if she's ready to go. "Go where?" is the polite response.

I love my father dearly, but this kind of behaviour evidently irked me so much that I overcompensated, and often find myself explaining what I'm doing and my reasons for it in more detail than is necessary. Yesterday, for example, the person selling me Beethoven's complete piano sonatas received an earful about how I came to be shelling out my 70 dollars. I'm guessing all he really wanted was the damn money.