One Sure Thing

I don't know if I've mentioned it here before, but youngest daughter never did go back to Calgary after the Christmas holiday. Half an hour before she was supposed to be at the airport, she came down the stairs from her room and announced that she was staying. She'd already phoned the airline and found out that she could get full credit for the cost of her ticket, she'd phoned her roommate in Calgary to find out how she'd feel if youngest daughter didn't return, she'd called her old boss and been promised a new job, and called her Calgary job to quit.

She'd learned she hates cities. "Everything is so ugly," she said, "and so inconvenient, and the only place to walk is on city streets." I could have told her this before she left, but she wouldn't have seen those things as drawbacks until she'd experienced them. So she's been here since Christmas, working two jobs, and planning to go to school here next year.

Last night I took a phone call from oldest son in Vancouver. "I'm thinking of coming home," he said. "I hate my job, I hate the city, and last weekend I got a $50 parking ticket when church went a little long. Besides, I've been thinking that...well....Daniel needs a dude."

I don't know whether he'll come home now or not. I told him to think it over more carefully and not to do anything on a whim. I'm sure of one thing, though: we aren't city folk.