Scene opens with silence and contemplation of coffee. Time passes.
Beta: Could we have music?
Me: (turns on Pandora’s 80’s station, just loud enough to fill the silence)
Time passes. Catchy tune kicks on.
Beta: Turn it up? I like this one.
Me: (kicks it up)
Beta: (Proceeds to talk at the top of his lungs, about nothing, over the song he just requested)
Me: (turns off the music to hear the prattle)
Beta: (stops talking, apparently cowed)
Everyone sits in silence for five minutes before music is turned back on. Loud.
Beta: (Proceeds to pick up where he left off)
Cut scene to Elgin burning.
Month: January 2016
Parenting Safety Paradox
I can’t drop the 5 yr old off at the door to preschool, she might get kidnapped before she gets to classroom. I can’t leave the 7 month old in the car, he might get carjacked in the ten minutes it takes to escort the 5 yr old to her classroom. I can, however, take both children across an icy treacherous windswept parking lot in sub-zero temperatures risking frostbite, cracked skulls, and getting run over. People have no reasonable levels of threat assessment.
Down with the sickness
(Scene opens in the cramped confines of a half bath, vomit cleaning supplies in the corner)
Alpha: Mom….if I die…
Me: Alpha, you’re not going to die, even though you feel like it.
Alpha: (ignoring me) Mom…if I die….tell Beta I do actually love him. He’s not a total jerk.
Me: (recalculates sickness level, contemplates ER)