Someone here in my house
October 04, 2003
Someone here in my house is nuts. It’s either them or me. I’m really not sure anymore. Let me describe my breakfast and let you decide.
Dad had just gotten back with the bagels, so we all swarmed to the table. It was a frenzy of activity, with plates being passed around, glasses being filled with milk, and the right bagel being found for everyone. Finally everyone sat down, and Raphael grabbed my milk. It sloshed on the table and he cried, “Oh noooo, Shooperman did it!” Ok, fine. Mom grabbed a paper towel and we cleaned that up, just in time for a wasp to fall to the table between Max and me. Dad reached out and smooshed it with his thumb, remarking, “See, Max, I told you it wasn’t a bee.” Um…ok.
Mom started shrieking with horror. Not over the wasp, but because Tre was carefully peeling the crust off his bagel. She considers that a crime against nature. Tre kept stripping the crust away, chuckling at Mom.
“I don’t like to get even a little bit of spit on my hand,” announced Max out of the blue. “I like to keep my hands all dry.” He rubbed them together gleefully, demonstrating his joy at dry hands.
“Oh, me too,” responded Mom. Those two…they have some sort of mind meld or something. I don’t understand it, but I’m not sure I want to.
Max, after having thoroughly poked at his bagel, decided he wanted to sit on my lap to eat it. That would have been fine, except it caused Raphael to suddenly and intensely desire to also sit in my lap. He leaned over and rubbed his wailing face against my arm, leaving a smear of cream-cheese spit. Soon they both were in my lap. Max companionably bounced his head off Raphael’s, singing, “Domy romy, domy romy, domy romy.” Finally I banished Max to his own chair, where he started playing a game with Tre.
“Tre, do you want a CD to eat?”
“What?”
“A CD!”
”Like you play?”
“Yeah. That kind!”
“Why?”
”It tastes like winglini and clams,” Max promised enticingly.
“Linguini and clams! [This is Tre’s favorite food. Really.] Sure!”
Max tossed him a pretend winglini and clam CD. There was a great flurry of pretend CD flinging and eating. Soon it degenerated into a chorus of (I am not making this up), “Chicken Bocky, Chicken Bocky, Chicken Bocky!”
So I’m asking you. I know I’m not all that swift in the morning, but it’s them, right?
Right?