A Grown Man

Part I
     We are late for an important doctor's appointment. It should have only taken thirty minutes to get to downtown from our house, but the expressway was a parking lot. We've been in the car twice that long and we aren't there yet.
     Rob is home for winter break after his first semester of college.  When he first came home it seemed he had matured a lot, but a couple of weeks in his childhood bedroom has somehow rendered him helpless to make a sandwich or his bed.
     As we approach the hospital, I tell him to get ready to jump out of the car.  "Go to the reception desk," I say, "And tell them you are seeing Dr. P.  They'll tell you where to go.  I'll park the car."
     My husband is meeting us at the hospital, so Rob calls his cell phone to tell him we're almost there.  He says, "Dad, come down to the lobby and show me where to go."
     As he hangs up, I scold him.  "Rob, you can ask the receptionist where to go.  For goodness sake, you're a grown man!"
     He looks at me, startled, and says, "I am?"

Part II
     My sons are home from college.  Rob has graduated; Jesse has finished his first year.  Yesterday, we had excellent news: Rob was offered the job he most wanted.  He begins working next week.  He has already begun making plans to move out of the house into his own apartment.
     Today my two sons are out for a run.  They circle around the field at Highcrest Middle School, where both of them attended fifth and sixth grade.  (The field, for regular readers of this space, where I carried home the tuba.  http://sherylsolomon.blogspot.com/2012/02/free-lessons.html )The ten and eleven-year-olds are outside for gym class, and one boy yells to my sons, "Hey, do you guys go to New Trier?"
     Rob yells back, "No, I'm a grown man!"
     Another fifth grader hears the question and asks his friend, "Are those guys in high school?"  The first boy says, "No! Didn't you hear him?  He's a grown man!"