I gave Jacob, a dad-type, a lift home last night. Not really a friend, but more friendly than most co-workers, he was the perfect person to ask.
I told him about how on New Year's Day, I was hosting a bowl-watching party. A crab boil, specifically, complete with massive king crab legs, jambalaya, bananas foster, and assorted vegetables thrown in the boil. I told him how at the last minute, guests called to say their kid was kinda sick the day before. He was feeling better now, but, "Could we do it over here?" the mother asked.
Ever reasonable, I packed up my other guests and my 120 quart crab pot and its stand and the propane tanks and the rum and bananas and ice cream and jambalaya and frozen crab and corn on the cob and—
Of course I didn't. I flatly declined her preposterously rude request. And I steamed as I considered the distinct probability that she was simply hung over.
As Jacob and I drove across the 520 bridge, I asked him what percentage of kid-related, last-minute excuses are bullshit. "A lot of them," he conceded. "Kids are in a perpetual state of being sick. It's not hard to exaggerate at any given moment."
The hate is swelling in me now.