(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.
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.
(Daylong montage of parents getting breakfast donuts, birthday card, ice cream cake, discussing sushi dinner parameters)
Me: (standing in kitchen, watching Alpha enter, notices uniform) Going to work?
Alpha: Yep. (goofy pout)
Me: (resigned) Well. Welcome to adulthood, Alpha, working on your birthday. Love you.
Alpha: Thanks. Be back later.
(leaves)
(Carrot stands perplexed a moment, heads to basement)
Me: (to Husband over bank of computer monitors) Alpha just left for work.
Husband: (blinks) He didn’t take the day off? Of course he didn’t. (sighs) I guess we’re doing sushi tomorrow.
Beta: Can we do sushi without him?
Gamma: We can save him a few pieces.
Beta: Sushi at midnight is still birthday sushi, right?
(scene opens in small kitchen. Platters of frozen ingredients thawing: everything from meat to mulberries. Kitchen aid-mixer running.)
Me: (muttering to self) Bread going, where are the peppers?
(Carrot take down small red glass jar, holding five small red pepper. Carefully shakes one out, begins to de-seed. Crumbles to near dust in her hands.)
Me: Damnit, they’re too old. I can’t use these.
(Pepper flakes re-bottled, Carrot turns back to mixer, tests dough with finger.)
Me: Damnit, too watery and I’m out of flour.
(Carrot absently licks fingers. Freezes. Surprised look on her face.
Me: Oh. They’re not too old.
(Carrot claps hand over her mouth, begins hunting for coffee mug, downs it)
Alpha: (Watching. Points.) Ha. Ha.
Me: (blinks rapidly) Legit.
(scene opens in dining room not Carrot’s. Family party in progress, mostly adults around the table)
Beta: (takes empty chair, downs the last of a bottle of root beer)
Cousin K: You drank it all?
Beta: Yeah.
Carrot: I thought you liked root beer.
Beta: I do. Just that it was super flat. I went to take off the cap and it just fell off like someone had opened it.
(silence falls)
Aunt T: It’s a good idea not to drink bottles that have already been opened.
Husband: That’s someone cracking it open at the store, taking a drink and putting it back.
Me: Or putting something inside of it.
Beta: (shrugs)
(scene ends)
(new scene in grocery store refrigerated aisle)
Me: (looking at prices of small juice bottles) It says three for five – did you want to try the cranberry flavor? Get an OJ, apple, and then cranberry?
Beta: Sure.
(Carrot reaches up to get the cranberry juice)
Beta: Wait! Look at the lid.
(camera close up on broken seal)
Beta: We probably shouldn’t drink that. See? I can learn! (laughs stupidly)
Me: Your father would be so proud of you. You just might live to see adulthood.
(scene opens in dinning room, Beta shuffles in)
Me: (looks up from laptop) Good morning! Glad to be back home?
Beta: (groggy) Yes.
Me: Tell me what else you did at Sea Base? I want all the stories.
Beta: Well, we were on that primitive island and you get a chuck box. There’s the ‘Chuck Box Challenge’.
Me: Oh dear. I know where this is going.
Beta: (warming to tale) So, the challenge is that you have to eat everything you packed in. We didn’t have much time left so I look in the box and pull out the maple syrup and chug it.
Me: (starts laughing) Ohmigod. Go tell your father.
Beta: Why?
Me: I think he might be proud of you.
(time passes, cut scene to later, Husband walks into dinning room)
Me: Did Beta tell you about the food challenge?
Husband: Yes. I told him he should have put the maple syrup on something. Like an apple.
Me: Oh yeah? What’d he say?
Husband: Said that’s what Alpha did.
Me: (proud) I love our knuckleheads.
(scene opens in cluttered kitchen)
Alpha: (hunting breakfast) Ha-HA! (pulls bag of leftover pizza from ‘fridge)
Me: (pointing) HA! Ha-HA!
Alpha: Ha-ha-ha-HA!
Me: HA! Hu-ha-ha-ha. HA!
Husband: You guys are dorks.
Alpha: (draws himself up) You married her. You made me.
Me: He does have a point.
Husband: I was cool once.
(scene opens in deconstructed kid’s room)
Me: (tucking an exhausted, overwhelmed, weeping Delta into bed) Okay, sweetie. Get some sleep I’ll see you in the morning.
Delta: (pauses, explodes into fresh wailing)
Me: What’s wrong?
Delta: (sobbing) I didn’t eat anything tonight!
Me: (patiently done) Honey, there was food everywhere and you didn’t want anything.
Delta: (moar sobbing) I didn’t eat anything tonight!
Me: That’s not true. You had two deviled eggs and a huge bowl of banana pudding.
Delta: (pauses, remembers, less sobbing) I didn’t eat anything tonight.
Me: (pulls up blanket, kisses forehead): I got a chocolate mousse pie in tribute tonight. Get some sleep and you can have some for breakfast.
Delta: (gulps, sniffles) Okay.
(Carrot leaves room, turns off light)
(scene opens in dinning room, half recovered from Thanksgiving, Carrot at table still in bathrobe)
Gamma: Can I have bread?
Delta: Can I have cookies?
Beta: I’m just going to have another one of these sugared cranberries. Is that okay?
Alpha: Why is Gamma having bread? Did you say that was okay?
Me: (suffering, trying to write, hands over headphones that are clearly not loud enough) Oh. My. God. Please. Go. Eat. There is food everywhere. None of you are young enough that I have to be involved in the feeding of you. Scavenge. Forage. Whatever. I don’t care. There are no rules any more. It is a lawless time –
Alpha: (alarmed) No! Please! There have to be rules! Please make some rules!
Me: (stares, starts to laugh)
Alpha: (defensively) If you don’t make rules there will be chaos.
Carrot’s Inner Voice: I’m sorry, do I know you?
Me: (moar laughter, some tears)
(scene opens in partially clean kitchen, Carrot standing in front of open refrigerator)
Me: (talking to herself) Sugared cranberries done. Cran-applesauce done. Pumpkin pie in oven. Need more apples for apple pie. Need oranges for turkey brine. Prosecco for….
Delta: Mommy? What’s in that box?
Me: (absently) The rest of Gamma’s birthday cake.
Delta: Can I have cake for lunch?
Me: That’s not a healthy lunch.
Carrot’s Inner Voice: It would make more room in the ‘fridge for the deviled eggs.
Delta: Please? I can show you my cutest face ever? (fists under cheeks, eyes very wide, lips pulled into hopeful pout.
Me: Fine. There’s no such thing for responsible eating for the next month anyway.
(scene opens in mini van drive through)
Me: (hands over McDonald’s reward) Here you go. And thank you again for helping out and mowing lawns.
Beta: No problem. Nuggies! (stuffs one in his mouth)
Me: (starts to drive) I’m serious. If more people were willing to be that helpful and generous to the people around them, the world would be a better place. At the very least they’d all be wearing their goddam masks.
Beta: (slurps frozen Coke) Y’know — if everyone in the world was that helpful and generous, there’d be no objective way to determine who was a good person.
Me: (extreme close up, over dramatic side eye, long pause)
Beta: (mouth full of food) I mean right? It’d just be normal.
Me: What website did you get that off of?
Beta: Just though it now.
Me: (falls silent, continues to drive)
(scene opens in morning parlor)
Me: (comes downstairs to collective cheers of MOM!) Hey guys. Beta, come here.
(scene changes to kitchen)
Me: (opens fridge, hands Beta large styrofoam cup) I thought it was going to be a can or 1-liter, but it’s a root beer. I ordered cheese fries last night and got you a rootbeer ’cause the pizza places never have them. It might be flat. Sorry about that.
Beta: That’s okay, mom. I’ll –
Alpha: (suddenly appears) Did I hear someone say cheese fries?
Me: (hands Alpha a styrofoam box) Here’s the last of them. I couldn’t finish them all.
(Gamma and Delta run in, chanting “Cheese Fries!”)
Me: Christ! I’m not awake yet! (rubs face) Alpha, could you share a little of your fries? Like I’m sharing with you?
Alpha: (resigned) Sure.
(twenty minute montage of arguing over cheese fries and lamenting not enough cheese fries and wanting moar cheese fries)
Me: (head in hands over cooling coffee) For the love of… I should have thrown them out. Why do you make me regret the things I do for you guys?
Gamma: Because we like food.
Delta: Because I’m five.
Beta: (smugly slurping root beer) Wow, when did he get self-aware?
Me: He’s always been more self-aware than the rest of you. Maybe you guys could go somewhere and let me have my coffee in peace?
