The Canadian Connection

2003

My father has been exchanging emails with a woman from Canada. Her name is Betty. She is in her 60's and is still housing her two grown boys in an apartment. Dad has been talking about Betty for two months now. Since his last fiasco with Ying he has been a little more cautious. I haven't been paying as much attention to him as I should these days. The theater group I perform with is preparing for the annual Christmas show. I've got the two boys with their schedules, a husband that travels and my own full time job. I've been busy.

The Christmas show is a big event in our house. It is held every year the first weekend in December. For my family it is the kick-off of the Christmas season. For me, the madness of rehearsals end and the Christmas shopping madness begins! My father listens to the chatter about the show, but he has never attended. When my mother was alive she would try and get him to come along. He could never be bothered. He doesn't like crowds nor people in general, unless of course they are young attractive women.

Two weeks before the show my father is sitting at our kitchen table eating dinner with us. He announces that he has invited Betty to come and see the Christmas show. Lee begins asking him logical questions, "How will she get here?" "Where is she going to stay?" "What is her last name?" "Do you know where in Canada she lives?" Needless to say, he doesn't know the answer to any of these questions, but he writes them down on a piece of paper.

The next evening he arrives at our house, again for dinner, and pulls out the piece of paper with all the answers and her telephone number. Next he pulls out his credit card and urges Lee to make the travel arrangements. After dinner Lee has Dad call Betty on the phone. Dad talks to her briefly and hands the phone over to Lee. Within an hour, at my father's insistence, travel arrangements are made. She is flying in the Wednesday before the show and leaving the following Monday. I am the lucky winner of "airport pick-up and drop-off!"

Before you know it, that fateful Wednesday evening has arrived. I drive to Dads house to pick him up and………he won't go. "I don't like airports, they make me nervous." I look at him and want to pull that rug off his head and throw it out into the snowy darkness. After my fruitless attempts at coaxing him into the car, I leave on my solo one hour drive to the airport to pick up a woman I have never seen. My father's parting words to me were, "I hope she's not fat!"

It's winter, it's New England and it is COLD! I am just as bitter as the air I breathe. How in the world do I get into these bizarre situations? The drive is long and I have a rehearsal tomorrow evening, this is insane!

I arrive. I park. I enter the terminal, the flight is on time. I'm watching people come through the door. Young people, old people, skinny people and fat people. At long last a woman emerges scanning the faces of strangers. I walk up to her, "You must be Betty." "Yes, yes, you must be Stacey, I've heard so much about you, thank you so much for picking me up. Where is Ray?" I explain that my father tries to avoid crowds and is at home anxiously awaiting her company. I help her gather her belongings and off we go headed for Terryton.

Betty seems to be a lovely woman. We have pleasant conversation. She asks many questions about Connecticut and life in New England. On the way we stop off at the theater and I check on my things in the dressing room. She is very excited about seeing the show this weekend and tells me that my father talks about it all the time. I find this mildly amusing since my father has never shown any interest in the past. I think this was just a good excuse to lour a woman here for a little hanky panky. However Betty is not the type of person my father will be at all interested in. She is a bit over weight and walks slowly. This should prove to be very interesting.

When we get to the house, I help Betty with her bags. My father just stands and watches. It is uncomfortable. I can see a look of disgust on his face. I ask Dad where we should put the luggage and he says "In the bedroom I guess. I'll be sleeping in the room upstairs, put that stuff in the room down here." Betty and I carry the bags down the hall. She puts her coat on the bed and follows me to the kitchen. She goes over and hugs my father and says "It's so nice to finally meet you!" My father responds, "Well there is a lot more of you than I thought there would be!" Betty laughs and tells him that we stopped by the theater and how exciting her trip was. I sit with them for a half hour and they seem to have gotten over the awkwardness of the situation.

As always the show was a great success and a good time was had by all. I wasn't exactly sure if my father and his "date" attended, however Lee saw them sitting in the back of the theater nearest the exit.

The Monday morning that Betty is scheduled to leave there is an ice storm. School is delayed. At 5:30 am my phone is ringing and it is my father. "We will be right over." I tell him, "Dad wait, it is dangerous out, let me check on the status of her flight, I am sure it has been delayed. I'll call you back in 30 minutes." I get up, start the coffee, check on the flight, it is on time. I'm just about to pick up the phone when the door bell rings. Now the dogs are barking and running up and down the hallway like maniac's. Great! I open the door holding the dogs back, and in walks my father, Betty in tow carrying her bags.

Dad announces "Well, we're ready!" Betty can see that she is no longer wanted. I am sure that she figured that out well before this morning. I feel very sorry for this woman. Lord knows how he treated her over the last four days. I sit them both down with coffee and head upstairs to get dressed and get the kids up.

I get my teenager out the door for school. My younger one will have to miss school for the day because I have to start the drive to the airport early due to the weather conditions. Once we get to the airport we learn that the flight has been delayed for an hour. I tell Betty that we will wait until the plane comes in and she says that she will be fine alone. Without a word, my father is headed for the door waving to her "See ya!" Betty leans over and whispers to me "He told me I'm fat!" I apologize for his behavior and give her a hug.

Once we are in the car my father complains that the ride here was the longest ride of his life. "I didn't think I would ever get rid of her. Did you see the size of her!?" I am left speechless. He does not utter a thank you for the total of four hours I have spent driving back and forth to the airport. He does not an offer to fill my gas tank. Just ranting and raving. Once I collect myself I tell him, "Dad, I will never ever put myself or another woman through this kind of torture again. You have been rude to Betty. Calling people fat is not nice. In the future you will have to find other people to make travel arrangements for you and to be a chauffeur." He mumbles a few insults at me, laughs and looks out the window. He remains silent for the rest of the ride home.

Betty sent me an email once she arrived home. She wrote a few things about her visit with my father. She said that he had taken her out one afternoon to see the sites of Terryton (which there are none of) and he got them lost. She says she could tell that his memory is not very good. When he called her fat, she did point out to him that he had a rather large pot belly and he got a mad and didn't talk for a while. Somehow she was able to excuse his rudeness and brushed it off to being old.