Free chairs came at quite a cost

This past weekend we made another trip to our beloved seaside retreat, not just for play, but also to retrieve a pair of easy chairs for our repainted living room. The grandparents had bought a pair of new recliners for the beach condo, so this weekend we went down there to pick up the old ones. The grandparents were down there as well, so we figured it would be a chance for some fun quality time.

Merciful God, what an ordeal! Granny, as you probably know, has a very impulsive nature, and also likes to make everything as complicated as possible. She brought enough food for an army, including a whole ham, 3 loaves of bread, a pumpkin pie, and various cheeses and snacks. That doesn't sound bad at first, but Saturday and Sunday morning she insisted on everyone having a big, complicated breakfast together involving eggs cooked to order. So we lost probably 2 hours each morning in all the preparation, consumption, and cleaning up. When we're down there by ourselves, we relax with some coffee for a while before eating simple cereal and fruit. We don't throw ourselves into cooking up a feast first thing when we get up.

The new chairs were supposed to be delivered in the morning, but after a few hours we called and they said it would be closer to 2PM. So we started to go across the street to get hot dogs for lunch, but just as we were leaving the building, the truck showed up. Then came the whole production of getting the chairs inside and getting the old ones loaded into our SUV.

And what of the new recliners? Bloody awful. They're stiff, have hard wooden arms, sit too high, don't lean back far enough, and are upholstered in bright red faux suede. When you think beach house, do you think red suede? Another impulsive Granny purchase. I love having the old easy chairs at home, but I'll definitely miss them on future trips to the beach.

Then Granny had everyone sit down at the table again for a big lunch, even though we had dinner reservations in 4 hours. I had planned on chilling out for a while that afternoon reading or napping, but Granny got cabin fever and had us drive her to some stupid furniture store just to look around for 10 minutes. She wound up impulse-buying a bunch of linen napkins when she probably already has a hundred similar ones at home.

Did I mention how long it takes to get Granny in and out of the car? She shuffles along using a walker, and Granddaddy has to back the car up to the door and help slooooowly hoist her in, then fold up the walker and load it in the back. Then it takes forever for her to ease herself out of the car.

We got back from that outing at 5 and my wife told Granny she'd take the first shower so she could have time to dry her hair. About 30 seconds after she'd turned the water off, Granny knocked and said "OK, can I get in there now?" Couldn't wait 5 goddamn minutes for her to dry off and brush her hair! So she had to gather up her hairbrush and makeup and scurry out dripping wet wearing only a towel. At 5:10. Over an hour before we had to leave for dinner. And I overheard Granny say to Granddaddy "why did she get the first shower?" ARRRRGH!

Dinner Saturday night was great, but we were so tired from the day's activities that we stayed in instead of going out bar-hopping. After another huge, time-consuming breakfast on Sunday, we launched into helping the grandparents get ready to leave. Granny decided to pack up a tea set and some other items at the condo to take back home with her, as if she doesn't already have a dozen fucking tea sets at home. We had to wipe down the dining table after all those grandiose family meals. Granddaddy decided it was a good time to vacuum the slats on the closet doors and the carpet in the hall, despite the fact that the fucking cleaning lady was coming the next day. Oh yes, the cleaning lady doesn't do laundry, so we had to wash our towels and sheets. Had we known that, we would have brought our own, but, oh wait, we had to sleep in the room with the twin beds, for which we do not own sheets, so we had to use Granny's twin sheets. Granny travels with a potty chair. And a big wooden box just for her jewelry. So all their crap and the additional crap Granny packed up took up two luggage carts.

They left at 1:30. Peace at last! We figured we'd grab some Mexican food for lunch, but as soon as we sat down, my wife got a message that she had to be at work at 7AM, so fuck it, we just packed up and left town. We had to leave at 2:30 anyway in order to be home before dark thanks to the return of Standard Time and its evil 6PM sunset.

That was a fuckload of trouble for a free pair of easy chairs and a free dinner at our favorite restaurant.