My mom's flight was on time as I sat in the parking lot with the air on

Not sure I know where I'm going with this

While I was in college my parents came to visit me, excluding move in days,

once. They just never saw it as economically sound as they would have to coax my little sister into coming along in her eleven-year old rambunciousness for the ride, and would probably have to stay somewhere in the Decatur area for the night as four hours each way isn't easy. It never bothered me, this independence that was created by they never coming down, as it would other kids. They required their mother to come down and tend to the cleaning and cooking of a weeks worth of meals. My junior year roommate was one of those types. His mother came to visit from Bloomington twice a month to clean his bathroom, pester him about the condition of his bedroom and standing in front of the stove, hair still perfect, cooking chili for a weeks worth of eating, which would be stretched as long as possible. And the chili was just for my roommate, as she would tell us. Sometimes she would make a bit extra for one of my other roommates, but most of the time it was a pot for one.

It's not as if she didn't offer, to the disgust of my roommate, it was more that

she realized that the rest of us were fine without a “mommy” tending to our unmentionables and the slow bubbling of chili. We lived in the apartment as independent machines.