I realize I don’t know if my parents are still going to leave today like they’ve planned to. Regular people would stay at least until we have to check out tomorrow, given the whole ER situation yesterday. But my parents have a strict two-night policy. If they traveled sixty million miles to visit you on Mars, they’d bring Zabar’s whitefish salad in a cooler bag and they’d stay two nights. Also, they’d complain about the traffic, the parking.

