Attitude

Well.

Once upon a Tuesday evening, there was a home track meet. Tom and Olivia joined me at the track to watch Alyssa do the high jump (she came in 4th) and bask in the lovely weather we were having that day.

It was a day in which the temperature rose to the low 80s. So it was lovely, if a little warm for the runners.

The high jump took a long time because girls kept having to go off and run races then come back and jump and round and round they went.

Finally it was over and Alyssa joined us outside the fence that circles the track. She informed me and Tom that there was some sort of ‘senior night’ going on. At that point, Olivia collapsed into a puddle of despair. She was hot and tired and bored and hungry.

My mother took pity on us all and offered to take Liv to her house while Tom and I waited with Lyss at the track for whatever senior thing was happening.

Tom and I found a seat in the shade while Alyssa stood at the fence and watched the races. It was fine.

But then she got bored too. She came over to where we were sitting and said she was ready to go. She hasn’t actually heard about anything for the seniors from anyone official, just from her best friend. So the three of us left, Tom and Lyss for home and I headed to my mom’s to get Olivia.

I offered to ‘let’ Tom go get her but he declared with a smirk that we all know that Olivia wants me. Ha. Sure, she does. He was just saying that to get out of having to go get her. I mean, okay, yes, if he were to show up to pick her up, her first question would be, “Where’s Mom?”

But should that stop him from being the one to pick her up? No, it should not. Of course, she was at MY mom’s house, so there’s that too but still…

So I got to my mom’s house and they were surprised to see me so early. Olivia had just started eating some broccoli. She’d just finished a bowl of pineapple with whipped cream. (It’s a Gram thing, that sort of thing never occurs to me.) She ate two bowls of broccoli while I was there.

We finally got home and Tom had pizza ready. It was about 7:15. It was thoughtful of him to make pizza.

He informed Olivia her pizza was ready. I told him she’d eaten broccoli and pineapple at Gram’s, hoping it would soften him toward her eating all the pizza he was putting in front of her.

It didn’t.

She didn’t complain, so she must have still been hungry.

I gathered O’s homework so that we could get through it after she ate.

Tom asked me why I wasn’t eating.

I told him I would eat after homework was done.

I must have replied with a snippy tone because he gave me a look and asked me what I was giving him attitude.

Excuse me? Attitude? Are you kidding me?

I sighed and tried not to cry and informed him that I simply wanted to get homework out of the way before I could eat.

But seriously, attitude? What am I, one of the kids?

He left the room and I felt the stress of the day press down on me. What the hell just happened?

He came back to the kitchen and heated up O’s pizza because she can’t stand to eat anything that is cooler than the temperature on the surface of the sun.

She ate and I organized her homework.

But it felt like the entire evening was off. We were all tired from being in the heat and the sun. We’re used to frigid temperatures and this sudden summer heat was too much for our delicate systems to take.

In the end it was fine. Homework was finished, pizza was eaten, and everyone finally went to bed and slept off the stress and attitude of the day.