"No problem"

My 18-year-old daughter needs to have two teeth pulled in advance of beginning her Invisalign treatment. I scheduled the appointment about three weeks ago. Thinking it best that she not drive herself home following the procedure, I asked my ex if he could take her. A college professor, he's off for the summer. I would need to take a day off work to take her myself. He agreed - "No problem."

He called this weekend to say, "Oops!" He'd scheduled an appliance repair appointment at the exact same time as our daughter's appointment to have the teeth extracted. He would be unable to take her.

I rarely ask my ex for a favor. You may consider driving his daughter to the oral surgeon more of a parental responsibility than a personal favor, but I'm quite certain that he doesn't view it that way. On the rare occasions when I do ask him to handle something of this nature for me, I always have a back-up plan. "Oops!" is not an uncommon occurrence.

Paul is off work this week, taking vacation time to get some work done around his house. He's taking my daughter to her appointment this morning. Paul lives nearly an hour away from us. The oral surgeon is located 20 miles from our house - another 30 minutes of driving in the opposite direction. Doing me this favor requires three hours of driving and a good chunk of the time he'd earmarked for his own to-do list. But when Paul says, "No problem," he means it.

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UPDATE:
My daughter survived her appointment with the oral surgeon. It was apparently easier than she had anticipated. She only took the Novocain - no laughing gas. They told her to use over-the-counter pain relievers as needed. The whole thing took less than an hour, including the paperwork. At the moment, her biggest concern seems to be facial swelling causing her to look like a chipmunk.

"It is more important to LOOK good than to FEEL good."

This saying is especially true when discussing teenaged girls!!