Don't Say Dope
May. 27th, 2011 11:16 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mallorys_cameraCan always tell when RTT is feeling better – he gets obnoxious again.
Spectacular thunderstorm last night, at the height of which the electricity went off. “Mo-om!” RTT screams from the other room. Like I could do something about it. I suppose I should be flattered.
So I fix him up with candles for his room and he’s got plenty of library books and he can listen to his iPod. Plus it’s past 10pm so you know, sleep is an option too.
However he decides to moan and complain which pisses me off – it’s not as though moaning and complaining add any practical benefit to the situation, right? At some point he comes into my room and demands, “Tell me a story!”
“A story about what?”
“Tell me a story about Beau.”
So I tell him the Story of Beau – how when Beau was a kid, Bill hated him, told me once in all seriousness: “It’s a biological thing. A man can’t love another man’s son.” How Beau was really, really smart but really, really nonverbal – the opposite of Max: Beau could look at anything and immediately understand how it works. How when Beau was 12, his best friend Carl, also 12, got shot under very strange circumstances – well. I suppose it’s always strange circumstances when a 12 year old is murdered – and how after that, Beau changed, started showing up drunk to school, stole a car and totaled it –
“And after that, MaryAnn sent him to Rehab,” I said. “So for many years Beau refused to drink and refused to smoke dope –“
“Don’t say ‘dope,’” RTT scolds. “Dope is the word for ‘cool.’ Like: ‘This music is dope.’ It doesn’t mean marijuana anymore. Get with the times.”
“Fine,” I snap. “Beau stopped smoking grass – pul-eeze don’t tell me grass is something that you mow – although now, of course, he does both. And guess who his favorite smoking partner is?”
“Max?”
“No. Bill. So I guess the story has a happy ending, huh?”
“Tell me another story.”
This time I tell him the story of the summer Mark and I spent picking fruit in the Hood River Valley like characters out of a Steinbeck novel, and how the Great Raymond Washington Basketball Tournament divied up the faithful.”
RTT listened with his eyes shining. At the end of the story he said, “That’s so cool. I forget sometimes that you were a real human being once, Mom.”
I think he meant that as a compliment.
And with that, the lights came back on.
Spectacular thunderstorm last night, at the height of which the electricity went off. “Mo-om!” RTT screams from the other room. Like I could do something about it. I suppose I should be flattered.
So I fix him up with candles for his room and he’s got plenty of library books and he can listen to his iPod. Plus it’s past 10pm so you know, sleep is an option too.
However he decides to moan and complain which pisses me off – it’s not as though moaning and complaining add any practical benefit to the situation, right? At some point he comes into my room and demands, “Tell me a story!”
“A story about what?”
“Tell me a story about Beau.”
So I tell him the Story of Beau – how when Beau was a kid, Bill hated him, told me once in all seriousness: “It’s a biological thing. A man can’t love another man’s son.” How Beau was really, really smart but really, really nonverbal – the opposite of Max: Beau could look at anything and immediately understand how it works. How when Beau was 12, his best friend Carl, also 12, got shot under very strange circumstances – well. I suppose it’s always strange circumstances when a 12 year old is murdered – and how after that, Beau changed, started showing up drunk to school, stole a car and totaled it –
“And after that, MaryAnn sent him to Rehab,” I said. “So for many years Beau refused to drink and refused to smoke dope –“
“Don’t say ‘dope,’” RTT scolds. “Dope is the word for ‘cool.’ Like: ‘This music is dope.’ It doesn’t mean marijuana anymore. Get with the times.”
“Fine,” I snap. “Beau stopped smoking grass – pul-eeze don’t tell me grass is something that you mow – although now, of course, he does both. And guess who his favorite smoking partner is?”
“Max?”
“No. Bill. So I guess the story has a happy ending, huh?”
“Tell me another story.”
This time I tell him the story of the summer Mark and I spent picking fruit in the Hood River Valley like characters out of a Steinbeck novel, and how the Great Raymond Washington Basketball Tournament divied up the faithful.”
RTT listened with his eyes shining. At the end of the story he said, “That’s so cool. I forget sometimes that you were a real human being once, Mom.”
I think he meant that as a compliment.
And with that, the lights came back on.
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no subject
Date: 2011-05-27 04:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-27 11:19 pm (UTC)