My friend Janice, a single mom, has an amazingly dead-pan style talking about her teenagers Jory and Craig. [Names are changed to protect the innocent.] She also doesn't hesitate to use her sarcasm on THEM from time to time. Janice has few
moments actually spent with them, as she commutes daily from Port Washington on Long Island, to her demanding human resource job at Accenture/Microsoft in Manhattan. Her kids are both excellent students and extremely well-behaved, but there's never a dull moment.
I. Baby Pictures
Jory(14 y.o.)had never seen her baby pictures and she had a great longing to see this. In the past year she nagged
Janice about a hundred times to get the photos out. "They're buried in a box," she would reply wearily, "And the box is buried under ten other boxes in a closet!" But time and again Jory would persist with, "I've never seen my baby pictures."
Finally Janice broke her good temper in a pique and said, "That's because you're adopted!"
Well, her daughter broke down in tears and sobbed uncontrollably. Immediately Janice relented. "I was just kidding!
You're not adopted!" No end to the tears. " How could you be adopted? Everone's always saying how much you look like
my sister!" No break. She cried and cried. And hasn't let it go for months.
It turned out Jory's grandmother nearby had some baby pictures of her and the three of them got together at Grandma's to look at them. "Well," said Jory. "These must be from before you got me from the other couple."
Janice recently pulled out her fire-poof box which holds the family's social security numbers, passports and other valuables,
to get ID for her Craig to take the SAT's. She knows the children's birth certificates are there and she's waiting for the right moment to take it out and show her daughter.
II. I Think I Have a Concert
Craig(15 y.0.)thought he had a party at 5 PM on Saturday and he told Janice about it early in the afternoon. "Do you need a present?"
"No."
"I see."
Suddenly they realized that the party was not at 5 PM. It WAS on the 5th of June, but it had actually started at 2 PM.
At 3:30 they were made their way over to the party a bit late. Passing through Port Washington, they noticed some
festivites in swing around the water-front. "Oh!" said Craig. "Is it Harbor Fest?"
"Yes. It's Harbor Fest."
"I think I have a concert."
"You think you have a concert?!"
"Yes, but I forgot my trombone and now it's all locked up in the school and I couldn't possibly get to it anyway, so maybe it's just as well. What do you think I should do?"
"EYE think you should go home and go to bed, and when you get your head out of your ass you can come and join the world of the living!"
* * *
Early one Saturday morning Janice was driving Craig to school because the band's call that day was for an hour before the parade. All the band members had recently had to buy some white marching shoes which were manufactured by Dingles, so they simply called these shoes "Dingles".
"Mommy, I couldn't find my Dingles in the closet. I hope they're in my locker at school."
"Well, I hope so, too!"
Visions of going back home in a panic to find the shoes(Where would a Dingle BE?)running through her head,
Janice parked out front by the school while Craig went in to check his locker. After a certain period, Craig was
back out, proudly holding up the Dingles to show her; and then for one more morning, everything was cool.
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