(scene opens in parlor, Carrot opening her suitcase)
Alpha: Glad you’re back home, mom. Did you get my Mother’s Day card.
Me: I did, sweetie, that was very nice.
Beta: I did you bring us anything?
Me: I did!
(pulls bag out of suitcase and hands it over)
(long silence)
Alpha: Are you serious?
Beta: What fresh hell?
Gamma: Mom? I don’t think that’s appropriate.
Delta: I want some!
Me: That’s my boy.
Husband: What are you, twelve?
Me: It made me laugh.
(scene opens in mini van)
Me: Everyone get your belts on. OH! That reminds me, I found a new playlist for the car.
(picks up phone, begins to fiddle)
Beta: (skeptically) Is it kid friendly?
Me: (smug) Yep.
Beta: A kid friendly list that you like? This can’t be good.
(Carrot begins to drive and a cover of Danzig’s “Mother” begins to play)
Beta: (stunned) What the hell is this? Alpha? Are you seeing this? It’s a playlist in Klingon. We’re listening to Klingon pop music!
Alpha: (unconcerned) You think this is the weirdest thing she’s ever done?
Me: (giggling madly)
Beta: (appalled) You know, just because it’s in Klingon doesn’t mean that it’s kid appropriate.
Me: They’re covers of 80s music. Its unlikely there’s any swears in there.
Beta: Klingons don’t swear?
Me: Oh, I’m sure they do. But I don’t know if there’s a Klingon version of “F you, you F’ing F”. I think they’d just insult your honor or say something like “Your starship is a garbage scow.”
Delta: (righteously) That is very rude.
Me: Yes, that is very rude.
(music cues up cover of “We’re Not Going to Take it“)
Beta: (wearily) Turn this off please.
(Carrot laughs maniacally, fade to black, cut to car commercial)
(scene opens in clean dinning room)
Beta: (runs in) Mom! Look!
Me: (looks up from laptop)
(Beta proudly wearing a Chicago Cop leather jacket)
Me: Oh my god. It fits you.
Beta: I know! Dad didn’t think it was going to fit!
Me: You should wear that to school.
Beta: Why?
Me: Because it’s cool and deserves to be worn. Your Aunt K painted the back of that jacket.
Beta: She did?
Me: Yeah. Your dad asked how much she charged and she said $100. $150 if she didn’t like someone. So your dad paid her $200.
Beta: That’s awesome. But why?
Me: Just in case.
(scene opens in gloomy dinning room, Carrot at computer)
Gamma: (calls off stage) Mom! Can I come downstairs! I’m bored!
Me: (calls back) Nope. You can keep your Covid self in your room. Its what isolation means. Isolate.
Gamma: But I’m bored!
Me: You spent all of Spring Break locked in your room, why do you want out now?
Gamma: Dad took the tablet!
Me: (unsympathetic) Maybe that was because you won’t stay off the YouTube. Sorry about your luck. Do some art. Play with the felting kit I got you.
(time passes)
(Gamma enters the dinning room, masked)
Me: What are you doing out of your room?
Gamma: (muffled) Here. Can I have the tablet now?
Me: (somewhat impressed) Go ask dad. I don’t know where it is.
Gamma: MOM!
(cue laugh track, fade to black)
(scene opens in wind-swept parking lot, Carrot hand-in-hand with Delta. They both head to a kid salon. Delta has a sheep’s worth of blond curls on his head)
(cut scene to Carrot and Delta exiting salon, Delta possessing considerably less hairs, very nearly shorn)
Delta: (despondent) I don’t like my hair this way.
Me: (sympathetically) I know, baby. She took off way more than I expected. It’ll grow back.
Delta: I don’t think it looks good. I want my hair to be longer.
Me: (with compassion) I like long hair too. Dad thought you needed it out of your face because it was getting so moppy and bothering you at school. As you get older and as you get better at caring for it yourself, you can grow it longer.
Delta: (gloomy) It doesn’t look good like this.
Me: Oh honey, you’re still my handsome boy.
Delta: (with formal chill) Mother, don’t call me handsome looking like this. This is not handsome hair.
Carrot’s Inner Voice: Oh, my heart, she breaks!
Me: (resolute) You are handsome even with short little spikey hair. It will grow back quickly and you can let it shag out all summer long.
Delta: (partially mollified) Very well.
(Delta climbs into mini-van, scene fades to black)
(scene opens in surprisingly clean parlor)
Me: (looks up from typing) Gamma, what are you doing?
Gamma: (fiddling at the charging station in the corner) Putting on Delta’s fitbit.
Me: You can’t wear his Fitbit. Where’s yours?
Gamma: I don’t know.
Me: Go check under your bed.
Gamma: It’s not there. I cleaned my whole room. It’s missing.
Me: Uh-huh.
Gamma: It is! I looked everywhere! Can I have the tablet so I can talk to my friends now?
Me: (rises with resignation) Lets check the state of your room first.
(scene changes to mostly clean kid’s room)
Me: Where’d everything go?
Gamma: (kicks drawer under the bed) In here. That’s what it’s for, right?
Me: Uh, no. (tests drawer, stuck finally gets it open, over filled with kid stuff and trash) We’re going to have to go through that. (peeks under bed) Gamma? Look under the bed?
Gamma: (crouches down and looks under bed) Oh. My fitbit.
Me: (with deep Maternal I Told You So) Huh. Imagine that. Who could have known. Oh and look, there are the library books you couldn’t find.
Gamma: (sheepish) I’ll get the broom. Then I can have the tablet?
Me: Yes. Hand me the Fitbit, I’ll go charge it.
(scene opens in cluttered dinning room, Carrot finishing up a zoom call)
Me: (removes headphones) So. Beta. Talking to your welding teacher. Seems like you’re falling behind for not turning in assignments. Assignments that I remember being on your ass about weeks ago.
Beta: (sags, sighs, begins to obviously suffer) Yeah, I know…
Me: And he tells me that he and another teacher tease you about your girlfriend.
Beta: (snaps upright) They…! What….? How dare they! They told you that?!
Me: Yup. I told them that you and Alpha have this thing where I don’t know about the girlfriend until after you’ve broken up. But to keep making fun of you, as it right and proper.
Beta: (vibrates with indignation) You told him that? You actually told him to keep harassing me? (explosive and dramatic sigh) The see me walking to class with Gi— because she wants to take welding next year and haven’t let up on me since!
Me: (slightly disappointed) Oh, it’s Gi—? Doesn’t she have a crush on Ge—?
Beta: Yeah, but it doesn’t stop them from teasing me. I cannot believe you told my teachers it was okay to pick on me about my non-existent girlfriend!
Me: (carelessly) Well, start turning your homework in on time and I’ll tell them to stop.
(scene opens in cluttered dinning room, children waiting for pie)
Me: (looks up from lap top, calls out) King Charles just knighted Brian May.
Husband: (comes into dinning room with pie)
Beta: Who’s Brian May and why is he important enough to be knighted?
Me: (looks to husband) Want to tell him why Brian May is important?
Husband: Oh. He’s a champion.
Beta: (stares in WTF)
Husband: (prepares the set up) As a young man…
Me: (not seeing where it was going) He killed a man.
Husband: (changes track) Put a gun up to his head.
Me: He pulled the trigger.
Husband: Now he’s….
Beta: (interrupting) Okay! I get it! I get it! Stop already! (crosses arms, sinks into his chair) Geez, you could just tell me.
Husband: Way more fun this way.
(scene opens in the car)
Liam: (in a hoarse voice) The best part about being home with strep is that the new Destiny raid drops today!
Me: (pretending interest) Huh.
Liam: Did you know that if you finish the new raid on the first day, you get a WWE style belt?
Me: Won’t match any of your skins.
Liam: No. Mom. You get a real WWE style belt! Tells everyone that you’re a First Day Finisher! Put it in a glass case!
Me: (mildly amused) Huh.
Liam: Don’t lie, mom. If you could have gotten a WWE belt for larping, you totally would have.
Me: I would have hung it up, but I wouldn’t have bothered putting it in a glass case.
Liam: (warming to the subject) You totally would have gone for it. You and your boys? Rolling in? Going after the boss?
Me: (deeply amused) Honey, I was the boss.
(scene opens in cluttered dining room)
Delta: And my friend at school dyed her hair today!
Me: (mildly) Oh yeah? What color.
Delta: Purple! She looks like a brand new human!
Me: Did you want to color your hair again during Spring Break?
Delta: (delightedly) Yes! I want to dye it black!
Me: (makes a face) Black isn’t fancy. If you’re doing to dye your hair, you should do it a fancy color.
Delta: (determinedly) Black is fancy! Black is the color of suits and suits are fancy so black is a fancy color.
Me: (moderately impressed) Well then. I guess we’re going to dye your hair black
Delta: (gleeful once again) You lied!
Me: No, I didn’t lie. You just changed my thinking.
(scene opens in dining room)
Beta: (tying shoes) I need to be dropped off at 6:30 and then picked up after the game.
Me: Okay, we can do that, but what time?
Beta: When the game is done.
Me: Yes. But what time does the game end?
Beta: I don’t know, how long does a basketball game go?
Husband: (holds two hands wide apart) From end to end.
(room pauses)
Me: (puts head down on table and laughs until she cries)
Beta: (scowls)
Husband: (quite pleased with himself)
Beta: Mom. Not that funny.
Me: (wheezes) Honey, the jokes with accidental set up are the best jokes.
Husband: Got another one for you. How do you tell the sex of an ant?
(silence)
Husband: You put –
Beta: Wait. Let me figure it out.
(more silence)
(Gamma enters the room from the parlor)
Husband: (gleefully) Gamma! How do you tell the sex of an ant?
Gamma: (measures the room and with resigned hopelessness) No. Just no. (leaves)
Carrot: (begins to laugh again, wiping tears)
Look. I can’t be funny all the time.
I can’t even poke my kids and say “Hey, do something funny.”
Okay, I can poke Beta and he’ll step up to the plate, but sometimes translation is hard and you can’t distill the funny into a cut-scene. So today we do shameless promotion.
(cue trumpet fanfare)
BEHOLD SHAMELESS PROMOTION!
Today’s beloved topic is the coffee.
Oh, that magical brew that allows me to be functional against my natural circadian rhythm and the demands of children who apparently do not have circadian rhythms and do not respect the circadian rhythms of others. The brand I propose to you today is the Perle Noire.
(linky goes not to the Amazonian empire and I am not being paid for this review)
The bag was a birthday gift from my sister-in-law, who understands my love of coffee. She also understands that Mama Ain’t Proud(tm) and I will drink whatever coffee is on hand. Because I am just grateful to have coffee. Because its hard to justify the really expensive coffee when I have a pack of feral chimps in my house who’ll eat two dozen hardboiled eggs in less than a day.
There’s my self-slam. I’m cheaper than eggs.
Thus I am gifted the Expensive Coffee. Because when you’re all grown up, its the expensive treats that really get you excited.
Anyway – I cannot tell you in pretentious wine terms about “hints of oak” or “a chocolate finish”. I have not that refined a palate (see again, Mama Ain’t Proud(tm)) But it is smooth. So smooth. Like they took out that bitter sucker punch of your first morning’s hit and replaced it with unicorns and rainbows. I suppose it must be mentioned that I drink my coffee black. Black black blackity black. No sugar. No cream. Nothing. Just me, hot water, and the sacred almighty bean to whom I pledge life and loyalty.
There is nothing to stand between me and whatever the Coffee Gods decide to put in my mug in the morning and so I must taste its full savage judgement.
And Perle Noire loves me. It says to me “Child, life is hard. You’re going to need this. Godspeed.” And I say, “Thank you, Perle Noir. Without you, my life is meaningless.”
Even the smell is smooth. Everything about Perle Noire is dark and silky and full of love. You want Perle Noir. Trust me.
