(scene opens in cluttered dining room)

Alpha: Is today the day Beta gets back from grandmas?

Me: (wearily) I don’t know. I don’t know what anyone is doing any more.

Alpha: I like the quiet.

Gamma: Me too!

Me: (side eyes her, does not comment) Alpha, you know how you get more silence? Do good in school. Excel at sports. Get a scholarship and go away to college where you have your own dorm room and enjoy all the peace and quiet and never have to talk to anyone.

Alpha: That’s not how it works.

Me: (annoyed) That’s exactly how that works.

Alpha: I’ll have to share a room. That’s why they call it a dorm.

Me: It’s called a dorm because its a dormitory – a place where people sleep. You can get your own room and not have to share. They haven’t been one big large room of some twenty odd people since maybe the 1800s.

Alpha: (hotly) No. I…

Me: (interrupts) I had my own room in college and didn’t share with anyone.

Alpha: (Sullen rebellious stare)

Me: I swear to god, if the next words out of your mouth is “Things have changed a lot since you went to college, mom” I will destroy you.

Alpha: (exits scene)