(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 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 at the top of the stairs, furniture pushed onto the landing)
Me: What is this?
Gamma: (briskly exiting her room) I’m just doing a bit of cleaning.
Me: (somewhere between shock and confusion)
Gamma: (hands over a clipboard) I’ve come to some decisions about what I want my room to look like.
(camera cuts to clipboard)
Me: Uh, okay.
Gamma: You probably should talk it over with dad.
Me: Sure. I’ll do that. (slowly backs away, exits scene)
(scene opens in bright summer parlor, Jethro Tull loud on the speakers)
Me: (at embroidery frame singing heartily) Ring out those solstice bells! Ring out….
Alpha: (off screen and with terror) MOM!
(Carrot leaps up and heads to basement, cut scene to top of the stairs)
(Alpha looks up helplessly, Epsilon noses something suspicious on the floor, manages a doggy smug)
Me: (exasperated) Alpha, its just poop. If you guys walked him more this wouldn’t…
Alpha: (tremulously) Mom. It’s not poop.
(Carrot descends stairs for better look)
Carrot’s Inner Voice: Please, oh god, don’t be a rat.
Carrot: Looks a little big to be a mouse, and there’s no tail. (gets closer, sighs gently) Oh honey, its a baby rabbit. A very baby rabbit.
Epsilon: (wags tail and pants smugly)
Alpha: (tearfully) Is it dead?
(Carrot picks up small animal, wet and slick and black. It kicks slightly)
Alpha: (jumps) It’s not dead!
Carrot: Well, this makes things a little more complicated.
Editor’s Note: Said baby appears to have been claimed. Given the cruelty of Mother Nature, we are continuing to believe that said baby was claimed by the mama.
(scene opens in cluttered dinning room)
Husband: Do you like it?
Me: I love it it.
Husband: Does it fit okay?
Me: Perfect. The only gripe I have is that they didn’t put the Admiral pins on the sleeve.
Husband: (pause) You’re bothered by the fact that your cheap silkscreened knock off sweatshirt from China isn’t cannon accurate to the franchise it was taken from.
Me: I’m still gonna wear it.
Husband: (tolerant sigh) Merry belated Christmas, dear.
(scene opens in mini van)
Me: Alright Delta! It’s a Friday! Still liking school?
Delta: (morose) Not really.
Me: Why not?
Delta: (melancholy sigh) Well…it’s just….it’s just that I know everything already.
Me: Really. Huh.
(prolonged silence)
Me: So, what you need to do is do really well on all your tests and they’ll move you up a grade.
Delta: Move me?
Me: Yeah, if you show them how smart you are, instead of going second grade next year, you go to third. You can skip one.
Delta: (with wonder) Really? I think I will do that! That is a great idea! Thanks mom!
Me:
(scene opens in cluttered dinning room)
Me: (resigned) Okay, smalls, the school has encouraged twenty minutes a day on each of your two learning programs to make sure you’re all caught up for the fall. I don’t want any arguing. You can play video games after your work. Capisce?
Gamma/Delta: (in cheery chorus) Yes mom!
Gamma: Can we have snacks?
Me: Yes, as long as you work.
Gamma/Delta: (wailing) WE’VE BEEN WORKING FOREVER WHY AREN’T WE DONE!
Me: Its twenty minutes of work, not twenty minutes staring and the screen. You’ve done one question! Finish the rest of the questions and you’ll be done!
Gamma/Delta: (moar wailing) THE CLOCK SAYS WE’VE BEEN HERE FOR THIRTY MINUTES WHY WON’T YOU LET US PLAY VIDEO GAMES!?
Me: (trying not to cry) You’ve only done two questions! You have to do all the questions in the practice session!
(dramatic music, fade to black, cut to White Girl Wine Commercial)
(scene opens in Pandemic Homeschool)
Me: (miserable between two zoom meetings)
Delta: (fascinated by sing song story time)
Gamma: (talking to speech therapist) I have to read something out loud?
Me: (looks around quickly for suitable reading)
Gamma: (to screen) I have a copy of Terry Pratchett’s “The Hogfather” if that’s okay? (hold up book taken from stack of stuff)
Me: (dumbfounded)
Gamma: (begins to read “The Hogfather” outloud to teacher)
Me: (silently)
(flashback)
Big Boys: (yelling) Die Hard is not a Christmas movie, dad!
Husband: It’s okay to be wrong.
(scene opens in Christmas flavored pandemic parlor)
Husband: (unwrapping present, pauses in wonder) Oh. You didn’t.
Big Boys: (yelling) Mom! You didn’t!
Me: (smug) Now every year we can read it on Christmas eve and remember the true meaning of Christmas.
Big Boys: (yelling) Mom!
Me: Maybe you’ll stop complaining about being forced to watch the Hogfather every Christmas eve?
Beta: I thought you loved us.
Me: I love your father more.
