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Authors: Jen Lancaster
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“Hey, Bobby? I’ve seen this episode before. Turns out the old man would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for those meddling kids.”
Bobby slumps down at this news. He seems legitimately disappointed at my having wrecked the ending, and now I feel bad. He’s never as good at taking it as he is at dishing it out.
To appease him, I say, “I think Daphne wears a bathing suit in this episode,” and he quickly rallies. Bobby’s smile returns and he focuses on the screen again. While he watches, he finishes the cereal portion of his breakfast and tips the bowl in order to drink the remaining half-and-half, which he had to use because, guess what? We’re out of milk. Dad said for all we drink, he should have been a dairy farmer, not a trial lawyer. In Saint Louis, my mother would make sure we always had at least two gallons in the kitchen and a spare in the garage fridge. Said she hated having to run out in the night to buy more. Yet the one time she did finally run out for more, she didn’t come back.
The cream trickles out the sides of Bobby’s bowl and travels in twin tributaries down either side of his mouth onto the couch. In Sars’s house, this would be tantamount to treason, but no one worries much about sanitation around here. Really, it’s not like our house is a showplace, at least not since we moved in. This place reminded me of a small chateau when Dad bought it, what with the stone exterior, pointy roof, and the turrets. But years of indoor touch-football games and ill-groomed Labrador retrievers have turned this castle into more of a dungeon.
Bobby absently dabs at the stray liquid with the bottom of his college logo shirt. Our family consensus is that he applied to USC strictly because he thought it would be funny to wear “Trojans” gear. (Related note? The only other place he applied was the University of South Carolina. Go, ’Cocks!) I guess this is the upside of not having a mom like Sars has. No one’s here to cry over the milk spills. Gretzky ambles off his side of the couch to bat cleanup on the spots Bobby missed. See? All fixed.
After Dad became our sole caretaker, he realized our table manners were devolving into that of prison inmates, so he started to take us out to eat more often. He figured we’d learn how to conduct ourselves from watching the other diners. So, thank you, random polite people at Carmen’s Pizza, for showing at least
most
of us how to use a napkin.
“Why can’t you live around guys?” I ask. I’m genuinely flummoxed. Hell, I’m nervous to live around all the girls. Guys I understand. Girls confuse me with their secret hierarchies and ever-changing alliances.
Sars wrings her hands in a way that looks like she’s washing them. “Because it’s too much pressure! When you live with boys, you have to be groomed all the time! You can’t just go down to breakfast with no makeup on, hair in a ponytail, and sweatpants. Can’t be done!”
“Of course it can,” I reason. “It’s called ‘every day of my life.’”
My morning routine entails washing my face and sticking my hair in a scrunchie. That’s thirty seconds, tops. Seriously, my makeup bag contains a tube of tinted Chapstick. Once, I tried to use eye shadow and blush, but John-John said I looked like Dee Snider from Twisted Sister. I can’t disagree.
“Yeah, you can go without all the trimmings because you’re naturally gorgeous,” Sars says. “Some of us are going to need Maybelline.”
My eldest brother, Teddy, comes shuffling into the kitchen wearing a wrinkled oxford and striped boxer shorts. I notice Sars peeking at his thighs, which are still really buff from years of playing hockey. Who can blame her for looking? I’m jealous of his muscle definition, too.
Teddy’s bedhead borders on magnificent and he smells like that time we visited the Anheuser-Busch factory. Since he’s over twenty-one, he’s done little but hit the bars on Rush Street with his buddies ever
Bobby slumps down at this news. He seems legitimately disappointed at my having wrecked the ending, and now I feel bad. He’s never as good at taking it as he is at dishing it out.
To appease him, I say, “I think Daphne wears a bathing suit in this episode,” and he quickly rallies. Bobby’s smile returns and he focuses on the screen again. While he watches, he finishes the cereal portion of his breakfast and tips the bowl in order to drink the remaining half-and-half, which he had to use because, guess what? We’re out of milk. Dad said for all we drink, he should have been a dairy farmer, not a trial lawyer. In Saint Louis, my mother would make sure we always had at least two gallons in the kitchen and a spare in the garage fridge. Said she hated having to run out in the night to buy more. Yet the one time she did finally run out for more, she didn’t come back.
The cream trickles out the sides of Bobby’s bowl and travels in twin tributaries down either side of his mouth onto the couch. In Sars’s house, this would be tantamount to treason, but no one worries much about sanitation around here. Really, it’s not like our house is a showplace, at least not since we moved in. This place reminded me of a small chateau when Dad bought it, what with the stone exterior, pointy roof, and the turrets. But years of indoor touch-football games and ill-groomed Labrador retrievers have turned this castle into more of a dungeon.
Bobby absently dabs at the stray liquid with the bottom of his college logo shirt. Our family consensus is that he applied to USC strictly because he thought it would be funny to wear “Trojans” gear. (Related note? The only other place he applied was the University of South Carolina. Go, ’Cocks!) I guess this is the upside of not having a mom like Sars has. No one’s here to cry over the milk spills. Gretzky ambles off his side of the couch to bat cleanup on the spots Bobby missed. See? All fixed.
After Dad became our sole caretaker, he realized our table manners were devolving into that of prison inmates, so he started to take us out to eat more often. He figured we’d learn how to conduct ourselves from watching the other diners. So, thank you, random polite people at Carmen’s Pizza, for showing at least
most
of us how to use a napkin.
“Why can’t you live around guys?” I ask. I’m genuinely flummoxed. Hell, I’m nervous to live around all the girls. Guys I understand. Girls confuse me with their secret hierarchies and ever-changing alliances.
Sars wrings her hands in a way that looks like she’s washing them. “Because it’s too much pressure! When you live with boys, you have to be groomed all the time! You can’t just go down to breakfast with no makeup on, hair in a ponytail, and sweatpants. Can’t be done!”
“Of course it can,” I reason. “It’s called ‘every day of my life.’”
My morning routine entails washing my face and sticking my hair in a scrunchie. That’s thirty seconds, tops. Seriously, my makeup bag contains a tube of tinted Chapstick. Once, I tried to use eye shadow and blush, but John-John said I looked like Dee Snider from Twisted Sister. I can’t disagree.
“Yeah, you can go without all the trimmings because you’re naturally gorgeous,” Sars says. “Some of us are going to need Maybelline.”
My eldest brother, Teddy, comes shuffling into the kitchen wearing a wrinkled oxford and striped boxer shorts. I notice Sars peeking at his thighs, which are still really buff from years of playing hockey. Who can blame her for looking? I’m jealous of his muscle definition, too.
Teddy’s bedhead borders on magnificent and he smells like that time we visited the Anheuser-Busch factory. Since he’s over twenty-one, he’s done little but hit the bars on Rush Street with his buddies ever
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