It is eleven o’clock on a weeknight when my son, Clyde, bursts into my bedroom with distressing news.
“The milk has gone bad!” he shouts.
Although this really is distressing news (What? I just bought that milk), the way he tells it, with such obvious excitement and relish, is like an old-time newspaper boy announcing some juicy headline tragedy. I half expect him to follow up his statement with, “Read all about it!”
Or maybe that’s just because it’s eleven o’clock on a weeknight, and I am sound asleep when he decides to share this piece of breaking news.
“Okay,” I mumble. “I’ll get some more tomorrow.”
“But this milk is really bad,” he says. “Smell it.” And then he sticks the entire gallon under my nose.
A few years back one of the neighborhood skunks let go right outside my open bedroom window: the smell was so bad that to get back to sleep I had to shove two fingers full of Campho-Phenique up my nose. (This was a trick I remembered seeing in Silence of the Lambs, although in the movie I think they used Vick’s Vapor Rub, which I didn’t own. I wasn’t quite sure on the details, and, at three am, I wasn’t about to search IMDb.)
That was, by far, the worst thing I have ever smelled. So, yes, I realize that it could have been much worse—still: neither one is a very pleasant way to wake up. And, unlike the skunk, I could yell at Clyde.
“Get that AWAY from me and go to bed. Now!”
“Fine,” he said, obviously upset that his big news had not been met with a more receptive audience. “I just thought you’d want to know.” And then he turned away, the picture of rejection. He looked like the apostle who had just run through town on Easter morning calling, “Have you heard the Good News!” only to be told in no uncertain terms to “Shut it, you. We like to sleep in on Sundays.” And instead of running after him and comforting him, I muttered “good riddance” under my breath and went back to sleep.
But, wait, you’re probably saying. He was just trying to save you from pouring that nasty milk on your cereal in the morning. He was just thinking of you. And you turned him away.
Yeah, well, that’s a nice thought and all, but past experience doesn’t tend to support it. After all: was he trying to save me when he came into my room at midnight to announce he had just beaten Sonic 3? Was he trying to save me when he stood by my bedside like a spooky statue at two am, waiting for me to stir so he could ask, “Can we go to Martanne’s in the morning?” No, he was not. He was just operating under the usual assumption, that since I Am Mom, I am Always On Call.
Or maybe he thinks there are two Moms, the daytime one and the nighttime one, and that when he wakes me up in the middle of the night he is only accessing the night shift. But if that was the case then surely he would have noticed that the nighttime Mom is much, much grumpier than the daytime one. Of course, that might only serve to reinforce the delusion. After all, wouldn’t it make sense that the nighttime position required an employee of lesser qualities? And “lesser qualities” certainly describes me perfectly when I am unwillingly awoken from a sound sleep.
Especially when the reason for my awakening is a gallon of expired milk held directly under my nose.