after-dinner drama (lyn)

My mother invites Cynthia and her 17-year old daughter (Elizabeth) for dinner.  They arrive with  a plate of chocolate-layered cake surrounded by mini éclairs.  Dinner is chicken, mixed vegetables, cranberry sauce, and orzo.  I eat everything, but skip Cynthia’s dessert in favor of cut-up watermelon. 

After dinner, the 3 teen-aged kids (Alexander, Sally and Elizabeth) want to drive over to Woods Hole.  The parents don’t want them too.  It’s dark.  The Cape roads are unlit.  It’s a Friday night.  Lots of traffic.  And it’s the weekend of the Falmouth Road Race.  An extra 12,000 people are here just to run the race.  That means more drunk drivers  than usual.   The kids don’t understand why the parents don’t want them going.  But being the parents, the kids have to concede, though not without a valiant fight.

I wish they were still young enough to be appeased with a trip out for ice-cream.  Unfortunately, moose tracks in a large cone is no longer good enough!