Sunday, March 27, 2011

play nice? (lyn)

Alexander arrives home last night from “the best time of my life.”  He is tan, happy and brimming with news.  “I had pizza and a coke every night for dinner so I could save money for the partying later.”  (The drinking age is 18 in the Bahamas).  “But don’t worry, I drank responsibly.  Unlike some of the others, no one ever had to take care of me.”  And I should be proud of this news?

Alexander gets up late and asks for eggs.  I love making scrambled eggs.  I don’t know if it’s because they are easy to make and hard to screw up, or if I like watching the eggs quickly transform from a liquid-y mass to something more solid.  I like making them much more than eating them.  While Alexander is having eggs, I make the perfect salad with portobello mushrooms, tomatoes, and burrata cheese.

Alexander is not happy that I’ve gotten tickets for an off-Broadway play called Play Nice.  But he agrees to come.  Really, he has no choice.  Within ten minutes of this 90-minute play we both know it’s going to be dreadful.  It is so bad that despite the very small theater and the exit door near the stage, three people get up and walk out.  I whisper to Alexander, “Don’t ever do that.  If you are ever at a play and want to leave, wait for intermission.  It’s disrespectful to the actors not to.”  He whispers back, “Don’t worry.  I’m never going to another play again.”  The play drags on.  It’s laughably bad and some in the theater are doing just that.  And then five minutes before the play ends, an elderly couple (the wife with a cane) slowly and loudly make their way gingerly down the stairs, across the stage, and out the door.  It’s an amazing display of rudeness.

As we are walking home, we pass a street vendor selling pretzels.  “You owe me,” my son says.  I buy him a pretzel and have some of it.  I feel liberated that I am not tracking points, though I know I’ve been careless this past week.  One more week of liberation and then I promise to pay more attention.

Play Nice?  More like Play Horrible.  But I do enjoy the company.

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