Picture this: It’s Friday night, Dad’s already two beers in and Mom gets home from work looking tired. You’re in the living room and you can hear her announce that she’s too tired to cook.
Pizza is in your crosshairs! You scurry over to the kitchen to strike while the iron’s hot and just as you pull the Domino’s menu out of the junk drawer, you feel a chill come over you and everything changes.
“Oh we’ve got plenty of leftovers in the fridge, we really need to eat these.”
This was my reality just last week. Settle in for a little tale about love and loss.
So many thoughts ran through my mind. What did I do to deserve this? Why did she carry me for nine months just to torture me once I was alive? What game was she playing? I was even good at school that day, playing the long-game, knowing if I got in any trouble my shot at a one man pizza party was down the drain.
But her words were as stone cold as the numbing air wafting from the fridge as she began tearing open Tupperware containers and sniffing various pasta and casserole dishes for freshness.
As I witnessed her inspection, inspiration struck, and I burst out, “I think some of that stuff is kind of old, can we get some pizza instead?”
Checkmate, right? Wrong. She saw it coming from a mile away. “All the more reason to eat them now, we can’t let them go to waste, they’re still good.”
Man, forcing me to eat old, stale leftovers when I could practically taste the delicious, melty cheese and doughy crust on my lips. I had even dared to dream of Cinnastix. Is this what ISIS is doing? If so, we have no hope.
It was all or nothing at this point. I wanted, desired, needed that pizza so bad that I had to go all in. I got my trump card ready to fire.
I told her that Sam’s parents get pizza every Friday and they let him watch R-movies too (I know she hates Sam’s mom). I even tried explaining how I was only asking for half of Sam’s luxuries and that she should be grateful for how understanding I was being.
Suffice it to say, it failed. I considered throwing a fit, but the last time I did that I was banned from pizza and friends for a month. The Ice Queen then changed the subject like nothing was wrong, asked me about my day, and what I wanted for my impending birthday.
If only I could tell her what I truly desired:
A new family.
