February, 2016

Quoth the Passive Aggressive Raven: "Nevermind"

"I am a wimp."

I snorted. "You are not a wimp. I'm the wimp. You said 'candy sale.' I said 'no.' And what am I doing on this lovely Saturday?' I spread my arms wide. "Tagging sales envelopes to boxes of freaking chocolate rabbits."

Dorothy managed a smile. "If you said 'no' I would have said okay. You said, 'I'm kind of busy…' and I talked you into it by saying 'two Saturday afternoons and help me take the boxes to school on Monday.'"

"Yeah. So you are not a wimp."

"Watch me with my mother-in-law," she said morosely. "First Sunday of every month we have a family 'thing.' She's always telling me how to—well, everything."

"Anything more specific?"

"Oh, how the kids are being raised, the money we spend, the car we bought—" she rattled off. "I'm sure she would have a way to improve what we're doing." She splayed her hands to indicate the disaster in my living room.

"Oh, one of those." I stapled a form and manila envelope together. "Let me give you a bit of wisdom I got from Dr. Laura." Dottie looked aghast. "I know—I call her a stopped clock: right twice a day. This was one of those times. If you have a buttinsky and you cannot tell them to mind their own bloody business, simply tell them, 'wow, that's an idea; I will certainly look into that.' Okay, that won't work for the car you bought. But—oh, say, 'You really shouldn't wear that color, it makes you look so sallow.' 'Thank you, I had never really noticed, I'll certainly take another look.' 'You really shouldn't let the children stay up so late.' 'We'll definitely think about that.' You never promised to look or think long or hard, so…" She giggled. "'I will definitely consider that' covers a lot. It gets you out of doing things you have no intention of doing, while it sounds like they won the battle."

She gave me a pious look. "I will definitely consider that."

"Cute. I give you a life skill and what do I get? Smart ass."

She giggled again. "I'll let you know on Monday how it went."

/ / / / / / / / / /

One drawback to owning a cargo van: you schlepp stuff for people. Whether it's a friend who's moving, flats of flowers for the Kennel Club fundraiser or 94 boxes of chocolate for the second grade class Easter Bunny sale, you get begged for transport. (I should be glad it was just the second grade and not the whole school. The PTA was running the show, but the room parents were in charge of distribution. Dottie Marcon was the room mother for Mrs. Keough's room; when Mrs. Keough and I almost came to blows over her wanting to keep Lexi behind, the principal couldn't bump Lexi up a grade this late in the year so she just moved her to Mr. LaFond's class. Mr. LaFond made a deal with Lexi: slog through the regular stuff and I'll give you extra credit stuff that rocks. She loved it in his class. I was so grateful, I agreed to be the room mom without a quibble.)

And I'm cool with being the village pack mule. Granted, the overpowering scent of chocolate was killing me on the drive to school, but I could fix that soon enough. Lexi had to sell the candy to someone, right?

Dottie helped me unload the van and stack the boxes on the cafeteria table with the big 2 at the end. While we waited for the flood of kids, she gave me the Cliff's notes version of Sunday's interrogation.

"She was absolutely floored! She started in about Christina's after school job, that she works too many hours, it's going to ruin her grades—and I just said, 'That's a very good point. Matthew and I will definitely consider that.' Blew her right out of the water. She just sat there with her mouth open for almost a minute, then said, 'Oh. Well. Oh—good.' Hardly heard a word from her the rest of the night."

"Excellent."

The dismissal bell rang and within minutes the cafeteria was flooded with kids kept in scraggly lines by teachers doing yet another extra job.

Lexi's boxes were still at home, so she just sat on the small stage at the end of the room (the cafeteria doubled as an auditorium, much like when I was in grade school), legs crossed and—no shock—a book in her lap.

Slowly but surely the crowd dissipated and the number of boxes dropped. There were a few absences and the teachers once again had an extra chore of schlepping the leftover boxes back to their classrooms and securing them until the missing kids returned. (Why did I even contemplate being a teacher?)

Dottie's middle child, Edward, had already perfected the high school slouch and attitude at 6th grade. Now he slunk toward us with all the enthusiasm of a slug with a head cold. I remember being a pre-teen; the fact that any parent let a kid make it to adulthood is a miracle.

"Ma? Can we hit Burrito Barn for dinner?"

Dottie was about to correct the 1) whiny "Ma," 2) the can vs. may and 3) the choice of ptomaine poisoning. I knew she was going to say something—I recognized the look. I've worn the look.

Her face cleared. "That is something we can consider," she said, polite but noncommittal.

Edward actually grinned. "Cool!" He slung his backpack over his shoulder. "Hey, Lizard!" he yelled to his sister Elizabeth. "Ma says we might do Burrito Barn!"

Hm. He didn't miss the "consider."

Dottie looked almost smug. I reached over and patted her on the head. "You have learned well, grasshopper."