Do you think Jesus ever had to deal with complex parental politics?

So I'm in Sydney at the moment, staying at my Dad's place, experiencing the cruel and unusual punishment that is being required to spend time with my step-siblings. Okay, so they're teeny tiny and everyone else finds them adorable, but personally I find them extremely demanding and irritating. (Qualities I only tolerate in myself, DUH.)

So obviously I was extremely looking forward to moving on to mum's tommorrow, where the most demanding creatures I have to contend with are cats, who are, in fact, actually adorable.

Unfortunately Dad came down with quite a bad cold last night, and has been steadily worsening, and asked today if I would see if my mother would come up (from Newcastle) to get me instead of him driving me down.

As any child of divorced parents would know, there's a certain amount of parental politicking to be expected at any time, particularly in situations like this. I was lucky enough that my parents divorce was fairly amicable- on the surface at least they both claim to bear no grudges.

My mother, however, when informed of Dad's illness, naturally assumed that he was just faking, obviously, specifically to inconvenience her with the cost of driving her million litre sports car all the way to Sydney, and couldn't I catch the train with my suitcase, a set of queen sheets I bought yesterday, and my handbag. From Cabramatta.

I was already somewhat tense due to the whole torture situation so my head sort of exploded, at which point my father felt the need to mention that I 'shouldn't really have high expectations of her (my mother)' and that this sort of stuff happened all the time because my mother is obviously extremely selfish.

At this point I resorted (well, sort of involuntarily to be honest, I am a pansy remember?) to the traditional child-of-divorce battle tool- guilt, by bursting into tears whilst on the phone to my mother, stoically not mentioning it until she asked me why I was sniffing so much. And finally they agreed to meet in the middle (quite literally, at Gosford) and exchange me there.

*eye roll*

Remind me not to get married, now won't you?

M