One autumn or should I say fall my youngest daughter and her boyfriend Lee came over to visit me for a vacation, At the time my daughter Emma was 17 years of age and her boyfriend was a grand old age of 20. From the moment they walked out of baggage claim I could see that my daughter was in love, no longer was she my baby but now she was a young woman who was totally devoted to the man holding her hand.
In my younger days visits to my parents with my girlfriend always resulted in separate rooms, of course each night there would be some movement between allocated bedrooms and I've no doubt that my parents knew but turned a blind eye. The very first time my eventual first wife and I visited my parents my dad had gone to the trouble of taking his bedroom door off the hinges so that he could see me moving around. Although it seemed a good idea on paper he didn't anticipate that rather than me walking to my girlfriends room it was my girlfriend that came to visit me. This caused a problem because my parents didn't know what to say to her.
For our next visit my parents door remained closed, perhaps what they didn't see they didn't know about. So fast forward nearly half a century and I was facing the same dilemma regarding the sleeping arrangements. It was my intention to allocate separate bedrooms but the moment I saw them together I realized that this strategy was just plain dumb. From somewhere I found the maturity to allow them to decide on their own sleeping arrangements and it's no shock to the reader for me to disclose that they decided to save washing two sets of sheets they would share the same bed.
The amazing thing was that this turned out to be one of the best decisions I'd ever made. We had a fantastic time together, it was the best visit ever, no lies, no secrecy, just perfect. I took 14 days vacation from work and we did all the tourist things in Atlanta and even went to a UGA football game on the Saturday.
We partied at a fraternity house, Emma and Lee were in their element talking and drinking with my friends children. At this time Lee had been drinking alcohol legally for two years and perhaps longer than that because they don't have I.D. issues in England. I also knew that Emma could handle adult beverages much better than myself. Most often I prefer the role of designated driver.
I was fortunate to get the chance of a ticket for the football game and since my daughter and Lee were having such a great time they told me to go and sit with my friends at the game. They continued to party and when I returned to the fraternity house all seemed well. However things took a dramatic turn for the worst when Lee suddenly slumped in a chair and was totally unresponsive. Not only had Lee been drinking all of the time but also standing in the sun so that he'd look nice and tanned when he returned to dreary old England.
Fortunately Lee was breathing but he was totally out of it. The wife of one of my friends is a nurse and she told me that I should take Lee directly to hospital because he was in a very serious condition. To an Englishman he'd had a few beers and sat in the sun but she knew from experience that Lee was seriously dehydrated.
We packed our stuff and drove directly to the hospital ER, I rushed in and told them that I had a 20 year old boy who had been drinking and was unresponsive. The staff rushed out and bundled him into a wheel chair while my daughter was crying enough tears to fill a small swimming pool. By this time Lee was white, OK I know the Caucasian Englishman is known for being white but he was looking like a Madame Tussaud's waxwork model who'd just returned from the grave.
Lee was given his own room and his vitals were taken, my daughter sobbed in the corner of the room while the doctor examined his young patient. I asked if Lee was going to make it, I know that seems bad but I really did think that he was about to die. Hearing me asked this question my daughter increased her wailing and sobbing twice fold. Fortunately the doctor laughed and said that he'd be sending Lee home in a couple of hours, I didn't believe him, I thought the doctor was just trying to placate my daughter.
The cure was to attach a saline drip to each arm and infuse several bags of liquid to get Lee hydrated. Outside the room I asked the doctor if he got a lot students suffering this kind of trauma and he told me that he always treated a lot of dehydrated patients on game day but it was mostly old men like me trying to recapture their college youth.
After one hour of drips Lee wakes up and starts talking, he has no idea where he is and what has happened. He feels great and wants to leave but the doctor insisted that he received another hour of treatment before Lee could leave.
So two hours after arriving in complete vegetative state Lee walks out to the car without a care in the world. As we drive home I hear him snoring softly in the back seat. When we get home Lee is feeling well enough to help me empty the car, he doesn't even have a headache. Deep down I'm so relieved because at one point I thought that I'd have to make the phone call to his parents to say that Lee wouldn't be coming home!
Once we'd emptied the car we went inside the house and Lee brought me a bottle of water from the fridge. He smirked and told me to drink up because dehydration is a dangerous thing!
That's my reality,
Jobsonian
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