Role reversal

I feel very protective of my parents when they are in the big city.

You see, my parents have a unique sense of small-town honed idealism that doesn't seem to exist in such a metropolis or hardly anywhere in our society.

For instance, when I told my mom that I was a little disconcerted over the massive spider who has set up a home near my front stoop, she informed me that I would just have to tell him (out loud, of course, because spiders having psychical powers is a ridiculous concept) that I meant him no harm, and he would leave me alone.

My father is my prime example of a self-actualized individual. He is so at peace with everything that my high school best friend nicknamed him Ghandi. Of course, part of being at peace with everything is being very slow. I remember discovering that 12 hour trips with him took 8 hours with everyone else. He's the living example of someone who stops to smell the roses.

Whenever they come to visit me, I watch the city try to change them.

On their way for a Thankgiving visit, a trucker angry at my father's insistence at driving the speed limit, stopped them from making their exit and cornered them just off the highway with his big rig in an attempt at a confrontation.

It pains me a little when people bump into my mother without a word of apology, or are rude to her on the street, especially when she will strike up a conversation with anyone and is almost over-indulgent in her kindness to strangers. It's sad when she says hello or makes eye contact with people who are desperate to avoid such contact.

The idea of them becoming jaded city people like the rest of us is unbearable.

That's why I'm happy I always have to remind them of the city rules, such as getting to the bus doors before the bus stops (in my small town, the bus drivers yell at you if you stand up before the bus stops because they don't want you to get hurt) when they come to visit.

I hope these rules disappear from their minds the second they get back home.