Our little Mac had some surgery today at UofM. It was a relatively simple outpatient procedure that went quite well, as he is right now eating some McLunch and watching a variation of the Winnie the Pooh show. We’re thankful for the thoughts and prayers of family and friends, and thankful to the Lord for His faithfulness to us.

Emily and I had the opportunity to hang out in a waiting room with other parents for a good hour or so. It started rather innocently, with everyone either pretending to read a really old copy of US magazine or staring at their shoes. We all have one thing in common: a kid/grandkid in surgery and the fact that we’ve never looked at our own shoes for that long. It was a quiet tension, our heads turning every time it sounded like someone was about to walk in and give us a report on how the surgery went.

After a few minutes someone turned on the waiting room TV to the only channel it could tune in, which, at that time, featured The View. Whoppie Goldberg was rounding the bend with the classic line (“and another thing!”) when the old couple spoke up and broke the ice.

And where are you from?

I told the nice older gentleman and his lovely wife that it took us about 45 minutes to get to Ann Arbor from Spring Arbor (the well-traveled Arbor to Arbor path that we have often traversed). The small talk went up a few notches, eventually becoming medium talk, and continued to creep up to nearly venti conversation. It turns out that this lady once drove a school bus and casually threw around terms like “dually” and “universal joint”, yet she wasn’t talking about hip replacement. Neat. Her husband only chimed in when asked to participate. “Was that in 1971, Grandpa, or 72?” she asked, always referring to her husband of many years by that name. Maybe it was to make him feel old. I think it worked.

We chit-chatted about this and that. It turns out that we have friends in common, which is strange to think about given the age-span. But it made for a much better wait than sitting through another episode of Rachel Ray.

I like old people.