As the school bus coughs out my daughter, I’m on the phone with the one friend who still returns a text with a phone call.
I’ve considered dropping her from my dwindling friendship pool since talking on the phone is impossible, but she’s a pastry chef, so.
Friend: Why is my left boob so much bigger?
(Aggressive bus noises)
Friend: Sweetie, no, that’s for dinner.
(My daughter gets off the bus)
Friend: We should hang!
(My daughter: Mummy! Evie is having a sleepover — )
Me: Hold on, I’m on the phone.
Friend: Ok.
(My daughter: Mummy can I go? I told her I can go.)
Me: No, not you.
(My daughter: I CAN’T GO?!)
Friend: Wait, not me?
Me: Sorry yes you
(To my daughter: No, I’m talking to Laura)
Friend: Just give me one second.
(My daughter: So I can go?)
Me: Me?
Friend: No. Just a sec.
(My daughter: Mummy take this!)
Me + Friend: I gotta go.
AND SCENE.
Do you see how completely manic that was?
My phone is wedged between my ear and shoulder on the right. I balance my daughter’s backpack on the left. I’m holding a heavy bag of groceries and my fanny pack is wide open across my chest.
At this point even my pit stains have pit stains.
Because I’m not carrying enough, my daughter wedges a sheet of glitter-bathed cardstock into the gap between my head and my shoulder where I’ve dropped my phone precariously into my fanny pack.
Luckily, it sticks the landing.
Five minutes into being together and my sensory bucket is already overflowing and I’m covered in glitter.
I need a sensory deprivation tank.
And a fistful of Xanax.
“So can I go?” she asks, deaf to my internal screams.
“Honey, when Mummy’s on the phone you need to give me a minute. I can’t have two conversations at once.”
It looks like she’s considering it, but then she repeats, “So I can go?”
I lean into the closest thing I can find to a wall — a rusty chain link fence — and focus on my breath. It’s a trick I learned to calm my nervous system. Except today it doesn’t give me any relief.
But it probably gave me tetanus.
“I’m going to Evie’s slumber party and that’s final!” She’s getting mad.
“When is the party?” I ask, buying myself time to remember which one of the toothless twerps is Evie, the one who stole my daughter’s Pokémon or the one who kicked her in the head during the great monkey bar turf war.
To be honest, I don’t care which one is Evie. I don’t care if Evie’s parents are a throuple of card-carrying cannibal taxidermists who keep feral raccoons as pets, she can go to this party.
I could use the break.
Evie’s house is a quaint bungalow with a yellow door and a garden of wildflowers.
Exactly the kind of house you would own if you didn’t want people knowing you’re a throuple of card-carrying cannibal taxidermists keeping feral racoons as pets.
As Evie’s mom opens the door my daughter blows into the house like the Kool-Aid Man on MDMA.
OK bye then.
I chat awkwardly with Evie’s mom for a bit before leaving my number and handing over my daughter’s bag of sleepover essentials: a regular pillow, Nathan — her emoji pillow, Lulu — her eye mask, stuffies Rita, Mia and Bow, fidgets, Jibbitz for trading, possibly a pair of underwear and maybe a toothbrush and pepper spray.
Though Evie’s mom is the most vegan-looking cannibal I’ve ever seen.
I thank her a gajillion times as I back away from the house.
Start the carrrrrrr.
With our other kid out for the night too, my husband and I can’t decide what to do with our freedom.
Go for dinner? Watch a movie? Get drunk? Liquidate our assets and skip town before the kids come home?
We scroll our phones for the next three hours before landing on go for dinner.
We scroll our phones for an additional hour while we debate what kind of food we feel like.
Eventually we order a pizza and fall asleep on the couch.
Old but still lit.
The next morning I arrive at the pre-arranged time to pick up my daughter.
She has dark rings under her eyes and wears an expression that says today is going to be just super.
“Hi! How was it?” I go in for a hug.
She emits a brief, high-pitched scream.
The sound of a feral raccoon.
I say my thank yous and usher her into the car.
“Mummy stop,” she chides. I haven’t done or said anything.
[Note to readers: Always choose Option D: Liquidate assets and skip town before the kids come home. I know this now.]
The drive home is silent. She’s asleep.
With her eyes open.
When we get home, I throw together a snack for her and my husband and I pelt her with questions.
What overtired child wouldn’t love that?
“Was it fun?”
“Yes.”
“What did you eat?”
“Pizza.”
“Did she like your present?”
“Yes.”
“Where did you sleep?”
“A coffin in the basement.”
“What time did you go to—”
REWIND.
My husband and I look at each other.
“What do you mean a coffin?” my husband asks.
“A coffin,” she repeats with a clipped tone.
Have I been licking psychedelic toads in my sleep again? Has she?
I reach for my phone. “Like this?” I ask, showing her a shiny black coffin.
“No.”
“Something like that?” I ask.
She shrugs.
Clearly I’ve missed my calling as a detective.
We go back and forth like this for some time.
Bamboo, wooden, hexagonal, round, mahogany, metallic, American, Tattan, metal pine, the entire Titan Orion Series, Particle Board.
The coffin market is boundless.
My daughter’s expression suggests she’s ready to throw me into a coffin, forever.
They’d spring for the particleboard probably, bloody cheapskates.
My husband disappears for a moment and returns with a piece of candy. He slides it across the table. With racoon-like reflexes, she catches it and pops it into her mouth.
Then, he shows her an air mattress.
“No.”
He slides another piece across the table. She eats it.
He shows her a trundle bed.
“No.”
Another piece.
He shows her a cot.
“That one” she mumbles through a mouthful of candies.
“A cot?” he confirms.
“Oh ya, that’s what it’s called,” she mutters.
Whew what a relief.
I never doubted it for a second.
We laugh until we cry. She gets mad and storms upstairs.
What a time to be alive.
This story originally appeared in MuddyUm.
English (US) ·