Okay, so my parents are currently in Nicaragua.
They're on a couple's mission trip through our church and are staying down there for a week. My dad has been freaking out about it because his comfort zone is about the size of the inside of a cheerio.
So I have to housesit all week because even though little brother is 16, dad is freaking out about him being home alone, simply for the sake of freaking out. So I'm commuting. Luckily, they have a lot of food at the house so it's a good incentive. I do a lot of housesitting as it is, so when I asked mom if she was going to pay me my usual rate, she just said, "We pay your tuition. Get over it." Thanks mom.
I went home Friday night to get the lay of the land, you know, any last minute instructions, listen to dad rant about how he's going to contract some disease or that he's never flown over open water before, etc. (I refrained from pointing out that it's not like the plane knows that you're flying over water or land and will choose to crash accordingly.) As all of this was happening I noticed a gallon ziplock bag absolutely stuffed with granola bars sitting on his desk. Four boxes, he told me. When I asked him about it he said, AND I QUOTE, "If necessary, I can sustain 500 calories a day on just granola bars." He seems to think that they won't feed him down there. He told me that he was going to fall face down into a Big Mac when they got back, then he thought for a second and said, "And I don't even LIKE Big Macs." (Apparently we're also having steak next Saturday because it's hard for him to go a whole week without steak.)
(Part of me was a little afraid that they were going to get to Atlanta and he was going to hide in a bathroom until the flight left and then hop one back to Nebraska.) But he did make it onto the plane (he sent me "bye bye" as he boarded) and I was expecting that to be the last of the communication from them for a week. Then, a few hours later, I get a text message from him that says: We are here
I immediately reply: And you have cell service? He shoots back: Yes it is very expensive so you text grandma. Husker score?
Those are where my father's priorities lie.
He ended the conversation with: Goodnight. America is great. Third world not so much.
Yesterday I got one that just said: Greetings from the third world.
I can't even handle it.
Over.