Well, the folks came back Friday. As they'd flown in all the way from Santiago, Chile, I figured their arms'd be tired so I went to the airport to collect them. They did look pretty shattered and zombified by their stratospheric ordeal, and it took a couple seconds after I imposed myself into my mother's personal space before her expression of terror at this latest intrusion gave way to one of recognition. Dad grumbled about the airport employee who'd been pushing my Mum in a wheelchair, and who had had the effrontery to look insufficiently grateful after being presented with a $2 tip.

It was the work of mere seconds for me to collect their luggage, whisk them back to their house, and shoot a glass of wine at them. Now, as they started to relax, I knew I was going to be the very first to hear their stories of exotic lands and adventure! Why, they had been to the very ends of the Earth- you know they had to have some epic sagas, tales of pluck and courage and derring-do amidst some of the most inhospitable waters in the world! Shipboard romance! Mysterious and exotic foreigners!

I was not to be disappointed.

They told me all about the Aukkers (or possibly the Ockers), the overly-ambitious team in the morning trivia contest who used means both fair and foul to dominate the contests, taking more than their fair share of the cruise-line-corporate-logo-bearing tchotchkes offered as prizes. My dad, normally a model of equanimity, insinuated that skullduggery had been afoot! Then he gave me one of the prizes he had won, a little LED keyring flashlight which if you shine it in your eyes, it makes you wish you hadn't just done so.

They told me all about New Years on the High Seas, during which the waitress tried to sell them a bottle of champagne well in advance of midnight, despite knowing full well that at midnight they give you a complimentary bottle. " 'The free stuff really isn't all that good...' she told us!"

They told me all about the Great Laundry Room Drama, in which there weren't enough dryers for the quantity of washers present, leading to various acts of washroom hooliganism, washroom vigilanteeism, and culminating in actual washroom fisticuffs!

Ah, but that was enough adventure for one night! My intrepid globetrotting parents were starting to droop with fatigue. There'll be more stories later, but for now I'm back to the mundane and the day-to-day.