I've always believed that parents should have some sort of expiration date. Like milk, for instance, without the rancid odor. As a matter of fact, Toots and I were going to write a book whose title borders vaguely on waiting for our parents' death so we can actually begin living. Stop being so shocked. We DON'T WANT our parents to die; we just want to be unshackled. We want to live life without the conditions they've imposed on us. I've always thought parents should be parents until, say, the age of 18 or 19...I'll even give them up to 21 if need be...but after that they lose their title ("parents"). They can become our noble confidantes, or esteemed elders. I don't care what they become, but they're not allowed to have that kind of hold on us anymore after a certain age. That's the kind of expiration date I mean, not the morbid kind that most people think of when I first inform them of this notion.

So you can imagine what I must have felt like when my father informed us last night that he was going to have open heart surgery early next month. The idea of the expiration date, no matter how lacking it is in malevolence, just looks ugly when faced with your father's mortality.