Melanie Gideon - Wife 22

This is precisely why I didn’t post a photo in the first place.

Can we talk about the orange pants?

No, we may not.

Okay, let’s talk about #45. I can’t stop thinking about it. This was a tough one.

Tell me more.

Well, at first I thought it would be easy. The answer would be grief, of course. But upon further reflection, I’m wondering if stasis isn’t the correct answer.

You might be interested to know that subjects often answer in much the same way you did, first stating the obvious and then struggling to come up with something more nuanced. Why stasis?

Because in some ways stasis is a cousin of grief, but rather than dying all at once, you die a tiny bit every day.

Hello?

I’m here. Just thinking. That makes sense to me, especially given your answer to #3- once a week -and to #28- once a year.

You’ve memorized my answers?

Of course not, I have your file here in front of me. Would you like me to go ahead and change your answer to stasis?

Yes, please change my answer. It’s more truthful, unlike your profile photo.

I don’t know about that. In my experience, the truth is frequently blurry.

Wife 22?

Sorry-my son’s calling me. GTG.

Alice Buckle

Sick boy.

1 minute ago

Caroline Kilborn

Arches hurt. 35 mile week!!

2 minutes ago

Phil Archer

Wishes his daughter would SLOW DOWN and text him once in awhile.

4 minutes ago

John F. Kennedy Middle School

Also keep in mind that what fit last year might be indecent this year due to exponential physical growth.

3 hours ago

John F. Kennedy Middle School

Parents: please make sure your child’s private parts and undergarments aren’t visible when leaving the house. This is your responsibility.

4 hours ago

William Buckle

“The dangers in life are infinite and among them is safety.”-Goethe

One day ago

Some of my best memories as a kid are of being sick. I’d go from the bed to the couch, my pillow in hand. My mother would cover me with an afghan. First I’d watch back-to-back episodes of Love, American Style , then The Lucy Show , then Mary Tyler Moore , and finally The Price Is Right . For lunch my mother would bring me toast with butter, ginger ale with no bubbles, and cold apple slices. In between shows I’d throw up in a pail my mother conveniently put beside the couch in case I couldn’t make it to the bathroom.

Thanks to modern medicine, a flu now usually passes in twenty-four hours, so when Peter wakes with a fever it’s like I’ve been granted a snow day. Just as we’re snuggling in on the couch, William wanders into the living room in his sweats.

“I don’t feel so good, either,” he says.

I sigh. “You can’t be sick, Pedro’s sick.”

“Which is probably why I’m sick.”

“Maybe you gave it to me,” says Peter.

I put my hand on Peter’s forehead. “You’re burning up.”

William grabs my other hand and puts it on his forehead.

“Ninety-nine degrees. One hundred, tops,” I say.

“If Dad’s sick does this mean we have to watch the cooking channel?” asks Peter.

“First one sick gets the clicker,” I say.

“I’m too sick to watch anyway,” says William. “I have vertigo. Wonder if it’s an inner-ear thing. I’m going to take a nap. Wake me when Barefoot Contessa comes on.”

I have a vision of the way the days will soon be passing. William sitting on the couch. Me thinking up reasons to leave the house without him, which all have something to do with lady parts. In desperate need of sanitary pads. Going for a Pap smear. Attending a lecture on bio-identical hormones.

“Could you bring me some toast in about half an hour?” William calls out as he’s walking up the stairs.

“Would you like some orange juice, too?” I yell, feeling guilty.

“That would be very nice,” comes the disembodied voice.

The Sixth Sense is one of my absolute favorite movies. I don’t like horror movies, but I do love psychological thrillers. I am a big fan of the twist. Unfortunately, until this very moment there was nobody in my household who was willing to watch them with me. So when Peter was in fourth grade and reading the Captain Underpants series for the eleventh time I started a mother-son short-story club, which was really in my mind a mother-groom-your-son-to-watch-creepy-thrillers-with-you club. First I had him read Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery . ”

“ ‘The Lottery’ is about small-town politics,” I explained to William.

“It’s also about a mother getting stoned to death in front of her children,” said William.

“Let’s let Peter decide,” I said. “Reading is such a subjective experience.”

Peter read the last line of the story aloud-“and then they were upon her”-shrugged, and went back to The Big, Bad Battle of Bionic Booger Boy . That’s when I knew he had real potential. In fifth grade I had him read Ursula Le Guin’s “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” and in sixth, Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man Is Hard to Find.” With each short story he grew a thicker skin and now, in the spring of his twelfth year, my son is finally ready for The Sixth Sense !

I begin downloading the movie from Netflix.

“You’ll love it. The kid is so creepy. And there’s this unbelievable twist at the end,” I say.

“It’s not a horror movie, right?”

“No, it’s what’s called a psychological thriller,” I tell him.

Half an hour later I say, “Isn’t that cool? He sees dead people.”

“I’m not sure I like this movie,” says Peter.

“Wait-it gets even better,” I tell him.

Forty-five minutes later Peter asks, “Why is that boy missing the back of his head?”

Twenty minutes later he says, “The mother is poisoning her daughter by putting floor wax into her soup. You told me this wasn’t a horror movie.”

“It isn’t. I promise. Besides, you read ‘A Good Man Is Hard to Find.’ The misfit murders the family one by one. That was much worse than this.”

“That’s different. It’s a short story. There are no visuals or scary soundtracks. I don’t want to watch this anymore,” he says.

“You’ve made it this far. You have to watch the rest. Besides, you haven’t seen the twist yet. The twist redeems everything.”

Fifteen minutes later, after the big twist is revealed (with much clapping of my hands and exclamations of “Isn’t that incredible, do you get it? You don’t get it-let me explain it to you. I see dead people ? Bruce Willis is actually dead and has been dead the entire time!”).

Peter says, “I can’t believe you forced me to watch that movie. I should report you.”

“To who?”

“To whom . Dad.”

It’s a very bad beginning to my mother-son short-story book club.

“I’m going to sleep on the couch,” says William that night. “I may be contagious. I don’t want you to get it.”

“That’s very considerate of you,” I say.

William coughs. Coughs again. “Could be a cold, but could be something more.”

“Better to be safe,” I say.

“Which one are you reading?” he asks, pointing to the stack of books on my bedside table.

“All of them.”