sleeping at my parents’ house
Tonight I am sleeping at my parents house. I didn’t intend to when I woke up this morning but here I am. My brother took my room when he moved back from college so I’m in his room and he’s in my old room. I feel like that happens a lot with siblings as soon as someone moves out. In our case it was because my room had a bigger bed. So here I am, sleeping on the smaller bed.
It’s actually kind of surprising that I don’t sleep here more often. Since I moved out I’ve spent maybe 4 nights here and at least 3 of those were major holidays. The irony is that this house is actually much closer to my office than my apartment is. I used to ride my bike to work in under 10 minutes. It’s funny how New York can be so big and so small at the same time. I should probably come here more often.
So, you’re probably thinking, why is Jack sleeping at his parents’ house, it’s not a holiday, is it? The other day a relative passed away so tonight we drove up to go to the wake in Westchester. I knew this much for the last few days. What I didn’t know, was a. how much traffic there would be, and b. that I would get stuck in the rain right as I left work. Both of these played a big part in my decision to sleep here tonight.
Let me backpedal for moment. My mom texted me this morning and said “get to the house by 5:45 so we can get on the road. We should be able to beat the traffic.” I left the office at 5:30 with my bike, and as I was walking out Miguel said to me, “there’s supposed to be a light rain.” I said, “when?” and Miguel said, “right now.” It was definitely looking a little gloomy out the window, but whatever, 10 minute ride, no big deal.
I step outside with the bike, start riding the wrong direction on Broadway, head east on Walker and up Centre street. By the time I get to Canal and Centre it’s started drizzling (Miguel was right). I’ve gone a total of like 3 blocks. Still, I think I can get home without getting too wet. Light turns green, I start heading up Centre and get maybe another block before it turns into full downpour. Also, it was fairly windy. So now I’m 3 minutes into the 10 minute ride that’s actually going to turn into a 15 minute ride because of the conditions, and I am 100% drenched to the bone. Epic, right?
When I finally get back to the house my Mom looks at me and says, “Do you have anything to wear?” I look like I have just gotten out of a swimming pool with all my clothes on. NO MOM, OBVIOUSLY NOT. But I don’t actually say that because I figure I can borrow something from my brother. No big deal. So, clothes go in the drier and I steal some things from Kieran. Easy.
Out the door we go and of course it’s sunny and beautiful outside again. I just happened to choose the one 15 minute window of the whole day where it was pouring rain to bike home. There’s a double rainbow in the sky. Literally. We head to the car, get the show on the road and before we even get on the FDR drive the traffic is backed up. The wake is supposed to go from 6–8 and we’re stuck in traffic still on the island of Manhattan at 6:15. My mom looks at my dad, “What do you think?” He looks back at her, “We gotta at least try, if we don’t make it we don’t make it.” At 7:58 we pull up the funeral parlor. First person I see is my 8 year old cousin Emmet. It’s his grandmother’s wake (grandma on the other side). He gives me a high five and then dabs. I tell him, “Emmet, you can’t dab at your grandma’s funeral dude.” He looks up at me, “Yeah you’re probably right.” Unbelievably cute kid.
We spend the next 30 minutes chatting with friends and family. When you go to someone’s funeral who is relatively old the mood tends to be pretty light and celebratory. It was nice. Afterwards we went to the diner next-door to the funeral parlor for dinner. My dad asked if we wanted to split nachos. I have never in my life seen my dad order nachos or really any appetizer for that matter. For some reason this made me happy. The nachos were good but not great.
After dinner Kieran drove home. I was still feeling like I would make it back to my apartment. I even changed back into my now dry clothes from earlier. I had a quick glass of water and was about to head out when I felt a wave of exhaustion. “Don’t go home!” my body said. I went up to my room, my brother was already laying in the big bed on his phone. I went into his room and sat on the small bed for a second. I pulled out my computer, opened up the notes app and typed: “sleeping at my parents’ house”
