Sunday, May 21, 2006

My Mornings

[Interior, kitchen, early morning. Three children run around the kitchen getting ready for the day. Peppermint sits at the kitchen table, drinks coffee.]

[Middlest Boy]: [Off] Pepper! PEPPPPPPERRRRRR!
[Peppermint]: What?!
[Middlest Boy]: [Entering] My shoes are too tight.
[Peppermint]: [Middlest Boy], sweetie, they're on opposite feet. Take them off and try again.
[Bigglest Boy]: [Off] Peppermint? Is it pants day?
[Peppermint]: No. You can wear shorts.
[Littlest Boy]: [Entering, carrying a toy screwdriver] Peppymitt?
[Peppermint]: What precious?
[Littlest Boy]: [Looks in her cup] Wizz it?
[Peppermint]: What I’m drinking?
[He nods.]
[Peppermint]: Coffee. It’s not for children.
[Littlest Boy]: [Puts toy screwdriver down, reaches for her cup] Me gets coffee.
[Peppermint]: No, precious, you get water. Here’s your water cup, you can bring it in the van.
[Littlest Boy]: Want coffee.
[Peppermint]: Coffee is a tool of the devil and the instrument of our destruction. Also it makes your bladder hurt. You don’t want that. Here’s a banana.
[Littlest Boy]: What’s ‘precious’?
[Peppermint]: You’re precious.
[Littlest Boy]: Me [Littlest Boy].
[Peppermint]: You’re my precious [Littlest Boy].
[Middlest Boy]: OK my shoes are on now.
[Peppermint]: Nicely done.
[Middlest Boy]: Will you tie them?
[Peppermint]: I will. How’s that?
[Middlest Boy]: I think it’s … too tight.
[Peppermint]: Hmm. [checks] Well, you’ll need them tight if we lose containment and have to get into our EVA gear and leave the capsule. Right? Because there’s no atmosphere. You don’t want your socks to get sucked out into space, do you?
[Middlest Boy]: I guess. I guess they’re not tight anymore.
[Peppermint]: OK, into the capsule. [Bigglest Boy], are you ready?
[Bigglest Boy]: [Off] Yes!
[Peppermint]: Do you have your homework?
[Bigglest Boy]: [Off] I didn’t do my math!
[Peppermint]: Ooo! I hope your teacher doesn’t find out!
[Bigglest Boy]: [Enters] Ha, ha. Do I have time to just do it now?
[Peppermint]: Nope. C’mon, get in the van. Your father’s in the van, too. [With emphasis] And he’s waiting.
[Bigglest Boy exits, running out the front door at top speed.]
[Littlest Boy]: And me!
[Peppermint]: And you. Up you go. [picks up [Littlest Boy] and holds him, balancing him on one hip, finishes coffee and sets the empty cup in the kitchen sink]
[Middlest Boy]: Peppermint? Why do you drink coffee now when you used to not drink coffee?
[Peppermint]: Well [Middlest Boy], because remember when I was telling you in science class the other day? that without chemicals and their processes, life itself would be impossible?
[Middlest Boy]: Yes-s-s... but –
[Peppermint]: This is one of those chemical processes that, without it, my life would be impossible.

[Exeunt.]

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

toy screwdriver?! What's that for? The "poke your eye out" game?!

Anonymous said...

lol That was a cute story and so well written. I could picture it playing out.

Anonymous said...

oooohhh see im sooo very glad mine are half grown... the get to school with only a SEEYA .. :)

Anonymous said...

Perfect. Sounds like the typical morning, but lots of love, that is obvious.

I believe my wife and I personally keep Juan Valdez employed.

the Yearning Heart said...

jackt: I am not sure what it was designed for, but the toy secrwdriver is a flat head, plastic number that he carries around with him when he can't find his toy soldering iron and his toy Geiger counter. It is known as a "somic" screwdriver from something he heard me tell him once. It makes a sound like this "BRRRRXZZZZ!!" (the X is silent) and can repair anything, even, I'm told, bad food.

sugarP: I probably will have them for a while; we're trying to figure out what we'll do for their next teacher so there will be a good rotation in the school co-op.

Cardman, and 929: thanks! I stay armed with love and a clean washcloth.