Complex Numbers

Family

My elderly aunts (not my dad's sisters, but my late mom's sisters) are going to come down for the funeral. They both live in New York City, so it's a fairly easy journey: bus to subway to train to subway, and they're at Arlington.

Of course, they have to complicate things by saying that's too complicated. "We'll come down Sunday," one said. "We'll stay in a hotel overnight and leave Monday after the funeral."

Which, of course, is still better than their Plan A. "We'll take the train. Can you pick us up at the Washington station?"

Sure, Aunt A., but do you really have to make me drive around DC (which, though I've done it more, is far, far worse than driving around NYC, and about on a par with driving in Boston, about which the less said, the better) on the day of my father's funeral? Sure, the train station isn't hard to get to, and it's a quick hop across the Potomac to Arlington, but what if I make a wrong turn and end up in Alexandria or Fairfax? Every time I get familiar with what passes for the road "system" in DC, they change it. I'd end up, potentially, late for my father's funeral. Fuck that.

So Plan B is better; I just have to find an inexpensive hotel for them in the DC/Arlington area, that they can get to by cab from the train station, and get a cab from there to the Cemetery.

Snicker. Snort. Yeah, right.