Here He Is Again

I don't know if I like having The Man home this time. And I was so happy to pick him up at the airport.

In the airport parking lot, he commented, Are we on a spy mission? because of the silver, nondescript nature of the rental car. What, he's getting all blue blood on me already?

The airport parking lot issues you a ticket from a machine when you enter, and when you leave, you insert your ticket into a payment machine, pay the machine, then the machine spits the ticket back out so you can insert it into an exit machine when you physically leave the parking lot. We got to the exit machine. I couldn't find the parking ticket. Because I had parked so close to the exit machine, I could only open the car door a small bit, squeeze out, shake myself out to see if the ticket had fallen on my coat somewhere. The Man shook his head and said, "We're not even out of the parking lot yet." That was a stab.

On the way home, of course he had to stop by an electronics shop to buy an adaptor so he can use his Afghan cell phone. I found him impatient and boorish to the salesman.

I said, You can't be so rigid and demanding when you are home. You don't have a driver and guards to order around any more. You don't have staff here who worship you. And don't expect me to serve you.

Oh, he said, You mean I am no longer in charge.

Darn right.

I told him about an opportunity to buy an ipod for The Boy at 35% less than at the store. He rejected it. On the grounds that it involves a third party. He wanted to do it himself so it would be a gift from him. But either way, you would still be paying for it, I said. No, he just wanted to do it his way.

I stopped talking to him. All this just on the ride home.

Then he makes up for it at home by pulling out a single rose for me from his suitcase. He had picked it from his garden in Kabul and smuggled it into Canada. Scents have just about been bred out of flowers in Canada to enhance visual sturdiness at the expense of olfactory engagement. This rose from Afghanistan was a bit withered, but ever so honey-sweetly perfumed. It is reviving somewhat in water. I could just eat it.