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February 25, 2005

take two when needed for pain

So she comes downstairs and mopes around in the office while I work and her brother plays Diablo. This is day two of a snowstorm-induced vacation and she has no idea, at this point, what to do with herself. She gets the Operation game out and drives her brother nuts by making the buzzer sound for about five minutes straight.

When he makes her stop, she wakes up Spike and chases him onto my chair, torments and teases him until he gets agitated and starts scratching me, whereupon I tell her in a very loud voice to Please Stop It, Now. Of course during all of this I am also distracted by testy e-mail exchange number nine thousand with her father, and I wonder if she's just got some kind of weird psychic connection with me that makes her act out always when my temples start to throb.

She says, lying on the floor and kicking her feet, I hate my life; you have no idea what it's like to be depressed! Her brother sneers Yeah, right; I'm depressed all the time. Jesus, it's the battle of who can be more miserable. (Personally I think I could win hands down, but that's just because I've worked longer at it, so it's probably not even fair for me to compete.) Up she jumps, runs out of the room, up the stairs. Faintly, I hear her bedroom door slam. Spike settles into the wire basket on my desk and closes his eyes.

Her brother looks at me. God, mom, if she's this bad now, just wait until she's got PMS. I think Maybe I'll be dead by then.

Posted by JudyLa at 06:00 AM | Comments (0)