Non-Breeder: The Wisdom of the Drunk Aunt
"Why? Because I'm thinner than your mother."
by Lisa Gabriele
December 11, 2006
"I don't know," she said and shrugged, looking out the passenger window. "I mean if you want to you should, I guess."
"Well I know I want to, but I don't know if it's the right thing to do, or if he'll think by calling him that everything's okay, like I never even found those text messages from Cathy on his Blackberry, like that all never even happened, you know?"
She was quiet for a second and then she turned to me and said, in a child's clear voice, but one that was weighted down with real adult portent, "He's always playing games on that thing. It's supposed to be a phone or whatever."
There was my answer. How could I love a man who relies on electronic words to communicate his feelings?
One way for my friends' kids to get to know me a little better is for me to take them shopping. Now, kids don't carry a lot of money, but their mothers usually give you a little for snacks or lunch. (It's hardly enough to cover a bento box, but it'll get you some take-out.) If they're under eighteen and anything like I was, they probably think everything's free at the mall. You'll have to continually remind these sticky fingers that nothing in life is free.
"Look at your mom," I said, pushing my friend's three-and-a-half year old, Noah, through the mall. "She figured she was all set when she married a lawyer. Hello? Labor law pays shit, which is why she still has to work at that crap job. And why I'm the one taking you shopping today even though I have a novel to finish writing. Not that your mother thinks that's a real job. But let me tell you, it is a real job."
I like this kid. I have my fingers crossed for him. Like me, he's attracted to shiny, beautiful things and wants them for himself. One time, as we were checking out bras at Victoria's Secret (his choice), a giant, slutty teddy caught his eye. He grabbed it with both fists.
"Gimme that, Noah."
"No."
"Noah."
"Noah," he said back to me, grinning.
"Noah, your dad will have a coronary when I tell him about this. You think he's open-minded because he went to law school. But it's like his liberalism went the way of his moral core," I said firmly, but with love.
"Mine," he said.
It's tricky, isn't it? It's not for me to say if Noah's a burgeoning soft-porn aficionado, or gay. That's for his parents to worry about. It's for them to stay awake at night making bargains with God, tracing family trees for the kink this kid could have inherited. Me, I'd be cool if Noah was gay, thrilled even. But when you're shopping with your friends' kids, what happens at the mall, stays at the mall.
So, while my friends have embarked upon the land of parenting and surprises, the only thing that's changed about my world is that now their kids have to come to our parties. And I'm cool with that. But they have to bring their own juice.
"What's in there?" my friend's five-year-old once asked, pointing to my plastic cup. (Glass is breakable, their parents will continually remind you, like you don't know that. Like a hurled glass has never punctuated the end of a bad breakup.)
"Red wine juice," I said.
"What's red wine juice?" she asked.
"It's what makes me be nice to you," I said.
"Can I have a sip?"
"No. Your mommy brought you your own juice."
"Can mommy can have a sip?"
"No. Mommy can't," I said. "Mommy has to get up early because she lives for you now."
"What do you live for?" she asked.
I pointed to the cup.
She thought for a moment, then said, "You live to be nice to me?"
Smart kid.
©2006 Lisa Gabriele and Nerve Media
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