The wonders of balance

My going to my parents' place for a few days today has led to a strange experience of how good and bad can balance each other out quite unexpectedly.
I realized this morning with shock, horror, frustration that I was not, in fact, coming back on Monday, as I'd been telling everyone for a week, but on Tuesday. Evening. That may seem like a trifle to you, but you haven't lived with my parents (whom I love dearly, please discard that hate-mail draft now, thank you). To me who has, though, one more day means I am as yet uncertain to come back sane.
And I wondered for a few hours how I could have made such a rookie mistake. I have, after all, been going back to my folks' for a limited period for about 15 years now, I should be used to planning those breaks.
Well, it seems I'm not the creature of habit I feared I had become. Or else I slipped. Noooo, I didn't. The reason is this: train fare. It was apparently much cheaper to come back on Tuesday. And why was it that much cheaper? Because they had a promotion on first-class tickets. That's right, you plebeians. First-class tickets. And apparently I decided that dirt-cheap first-class tickets were after all a good reason to sacrifice my sanity and that of my parents.
Boy was I right. I may be short but hey, more legroom is more legroom, right? Not to mention a chair that reclines at the lightest touch of a button, air-con, and no crying children (I suspect that children are altogether banned from first-class. If, after a lengthy investigation, it turns out that this is indeed the case, I'm never travelling anything else.), and a very small tiny wee lamp on the headrest - I wanted to dismantle the chair right there and take the lamp home. I might do that Tuesday. Especially if I need the stress relief.
To sum up, then, so far so good. I'm still as all there as I was yesterday - for now, and that's not setting the bar or the expectations too high, is it... - and I may have a new lamp.