A Comedy of AR's

Chapter 96
Chapter 96: Inches and Miles

Chapter Description: Clark begins to negotiate and Janet starts to listen.

Chapter 96: Inches and Miles

 I jumped completely awake as ice water was dumped over my crotch. A massive hand darted over my chest and stopped me from sitting up. Where was I? What was happening? Where’d my crib go?! “Sorry, baby!” Janet said. “Sorry!”

The whole of me tensed up in flashes of surprise, confusion and fear. Janet’s palm held me firm for the second it took for me to calm down. Simultaneously a flash of yellow arced slightly into the air and she quickly yanked up the nighttime Monkeez back over my crotch. I’d been so startled that I’d peed a little, and now that my bladder was going it saw no point in clamping back down

“Huh?!” I panted and looked around. I struggled with whether or not to try and cut the stream off.  It was over too soon to matter.  I’d already gotten up two more times to pee that night and drifted back off immediately.  My tank wasn’t full; just full enough.   

I repeated my mumblings. “Huh? Wha-?”  No bars around me and I was higher up off the ground than usual. The lights were still off but the sun was out.  I was up on the changing table with pajama  leg snaps open and the diaper now loosely pressed up against my groin.

That ice water that had disturbed me, was merely the first cold wipe caressing my penis. A rude awakening, but given my life it shouldn’t have been unexpected. I was more disturbed that Janet had lifted me out of the crib and managed to unsap the legs and get my diaper off without me stirring.

Was I that tired?  A yawn gave credence to that fear. No other dreams had plagued me that night and other than waking up to pee (which I did standing) I had no other marker for the passage of time.

“Sorry,” Janet said.  “You looked really cute sleeping, but you needed a change.”  Gingerly she pulled the diaper back open, as if she were afraid that I’d open fire on her again; would that I could.  I rubbed my eyes and fought back sleep.

I hadn’t even stood up to pee that night..  I’d just opened my eyes, rolled over to my stomach and hoisted my hips up enough to do the deed.  Then I’d plopped back down with an added squish to my front, and went back to sleep.   Add the cringe I was feeling to things I was fighting off.  At least the baby monitor hadn’t turned back on…that I could tell.

Jessica’s incompetence of switching out the wrong end of the monitor that one time had spared me from a single night of conditioning and gave me a peek into the minds of otherwise tight lipped ex-friends, but not much else.  Recovery wouldn’t happen if the abuse was still regular.

I’d hoped that Janet’s turning off the monitor before she went to bed ended the subliminal messaging. The fact that I was still waking up to pee let me pretend I had a measure of bathroom autonomy left. Some of my classmates in Beouf’s room pooped themselves while they snored.  It was the kind of thing to make one self-conscious.

I stopped fidgeting so that Janet would remove her hand and get back to work.  Memories of that night’s dreams and frustrations parted with the morning fog.  My eyes darted down to my penis. My pale, limp, flaccid, not even close to erect penis. Thank goodness.

Janet’s lips were a tight thin line while she wiped me down front to back.  Each wipe that my member remained limp seemed to give her a kind of calm like an old man trimming a bonsai tree.  Janet was just as uncomfortable with what happened in the shower last night as I had been, though likely for very different reasons.  I could imagine her going back and looking up some crackpot religious nut named Froid, worried about what the ramifications were.


Hot water, naked bodies, and nice singing could happen to anybody. Sometimes a boner was just a boner. It didn’t mean anything.

My ex-friend balled up the diaper beneath me and visibly loosened up once she tossed it away.  She grabbed another Monkeez, this one a daytime diaper.  “Okay, baby. Almost done. Then you can sleep in if you want-”

“Please don’t call me baby right now,” I said.  The ‘please’ was the only thing keeping my tone from being described as ‘snapped’.

Color spread in my former colleague’s cheeks. She had genuinely forgotten herself. Typical.  “Oh. Okay. I’m sorry. Mo-...I didn’t mean it like that, Clark.  I just meant it  as a term of endearment.” 

My teeth threatened to grind together and outraged adrenaline started seeping into my bloodstream.  I’d let her take an inch in the shower and she was giving herself a yard. Unacceptable, and yet so, so predictable. Typical.

“I don’t care how you meant it,” I said. “I don’t like you calling me that word right now.”  There was no context in which I’d be comfortable hearing the giantess call me ‘baby’ after last night.  On a side note: It’s very hard to sound authoritative while someone is powdering your ass and slipping a fresh diaper under you, but I almost pulled it off.  Almost.

Janet looked like she didn’t know whether she should be angry or embarrassed or both. Her eyebrows, nose, and lips looked like they were in a kind of three way wrestling match for dominance, with her blood vessels acting as referee. Her face was practically a neon billboard that couldn’t make up its mind on what combination of mix and match expression to use.

She waited to finish diapering and redressing me back into the pajamas, built in socks and all. “I am guessing that you’re having some very complex feelings right now.  Not because of Maturosis, just sometimes things get complicated and time is needed to process.” She took a deep breath.  “Me too,” she confessed. “Me too. So I will do my best to respect your needs and not say certain things.”

“Thanks.” I reached up and let her scoop me onto her hip.

She swayed and pivoted slowly so that I was by turns facing the crib or the door.  “Back to bed or breakfast?” she asked.  I opened my mouth to say neither, but she cut me off. “One or the other, Clark. Not both. Not neither. This is a fair choice.”

I grumbled. “Breakfast.”

“Good,” we turned right out of the door into the hallway and towards the living room and kitchen. “What do you want?”

I yawned again. And spotted the clock.  Dang.  It was almost nine.  I almost never slept that late, not without copious amounts of alcohol and staying up till at least three in the morning.  “Milk, I guess.”  My stomach wasn’t exactly growling.

“Okay.”  The trip to the fridge to get a freshly prepared bottle was a quick one.  “In here or on the couch?”

I eyeballed my dining cage otherwise known as the highchair.  “Couch.”

That was good enough for her. A dozen or so giant strides later we were both on the couch.  She handed me the icy cold milk, making sure I had it gripped in both hands and then shifted me off of her lap. 

“There’s some stuff I want to talk to you about…” she said.  “But that can wait until after breakfast.”  I tensed and untensed in equal measure. 

She knew what I’d been doing in the crib last night, or rather trying.

I knew she knew, and she knew I knew she knew.  We both knew. It didn’t mean that I wanted to talk about it.  My own face heated up at the very thought.  Out of all the times she supposedly missed out on me cursing her, she just happened to overhear me failing to masturbate. What were the odds?  What was I missing?

Stupidly, I with drew the nipple from my mouth after a couple of sips. “Like what?”

“We’ve got a four day work week coming up,” Janet said. “I wanted to take some time to plan ahead with you.”

A wet throat and a dry bottom helped my gears turn more smoothly.  What was likely coming up soon, that necessitated a four day weekend.   “Fall Festival?”  I asked.

Her eyes brightened. “Yup.”  She tilted the bottle back up to my lips.  “Breakfast first. Let’s get that out of the way.”

I started sipping from the milk, letting it fill my stomach.  Janet reached for the remote and flicked away from the news towards one of the two kid/Little friendly stations she let me watch. I zoned out and went inside myself, thinking about the week I had ahead of me.

A cultural wasteland like Oakshire has relatively few big events. When a supposed selling point of living in a place is that it’s close to many more interesting locales, having a big event is kind of against the point.  The Fall Festival was one of those exceptions that proved the rule. 

Every town and city has something like a Fall Festival.  Some call it Harvest Haunt. Some call it Spooky Night.  Or Howl An’ Scream. From my understanding, what the festivities are called is largely a matter of region but basically the same thing; much like grocery stores.  So depending on where you live and when you’re reading this, you might or might not have a different name for your town’s particular shindig.

All involve a fascination with a fall harvest and an obsession with tricks and the macabre.  People dress up in costumes that range from scary to sexy to silly, and beg strangers for Tricker Treats. Legends say the traditions are rooted in fear of people dying over the winter and superstitions about monsters creating a societal need to maintain the appearance of control by making merry and pretending to “trick” the imaginary predators that would be growling at your door  Depending on how cynical I was feeling any given year, I attributed the stupid not-quite-a-holiday to either corporate greed selling an excuse to party or Amazons desperately needing an excuse to act in a manner they’d otherwise consider ‘immature’.  Presently, I was leaning towards the latter.

Oakshire’s Fall Festival is somewhat notable because it directly involves much of the town with the schools acting as central hubs for the festivities. For one whole day, Oakshire Elementary, Middle, and High, would cease pretending to be places of education, and run themselves as makeshift circuses to supposedly raise money. 

The highschool’s football, soccer, and track fields would boast rented carnival rides with questionable safety standards. The middle schoolers were treated to having their entire campus turned into a giant haunted house replete with community theater volunteers acting as ghouls and goblins. Oakshire Elementary regularly transformed itself into an even brighter and kitschier version of a carnival boardwalk with makeshift games, cheap snacks, and jokey sideshow attractions. (Behold! The Two Headed Cat, Born With Only One Head!).

Technically, the whole shebang was labeled as a teacher workday, and schools were formally closed.  Students were not required to attend, but naturally their parents would take time to buy tickets and drive them back and forth to all three sites.  Beouf and I would sometimes joke that Fall Festival was the one time of year that kids were actually willing to pay to go to school.  Remembering that made me sadder than it should have and I focused back in on the T.V.

“Mommy Yay! I’ll-be-big-some-day!”  Another commercial for training pants that I wouldn’t get to wear, featuring a model who was young enough to actually need and grow out of them.

Nevermind…

Lazily I leaned into Janet’s side and kept nursing the bottle. The warmth of her body felt good with the coldness of the milk.  She draped her arm around me, and I tolerated it, admittedly enjoying the physical touch in the moment.  At least she wasn’t talking.  The only complaint I could muster was how much the pajamas muted the sensation.  It was like I was wearing a body sock. 

I closed my eyes and wondered how nice this might feel if we were skin to skin. Shower-!
Something stirred down below, ever so slightly, and my eyes popped open.  Nope. No. Nope. Nuh-uh.

Fuck.  Nevermind.  I continued sucking down goat’s milk and zoned out inside of myself.  Back to dreading Fall Festival

For Fall Festival, the teachers, of course, were quietly encouraged to participate and run booths, attractions, and concession stands. We could hypothetically claim that we needed the day to ourselves to work from home and put in grades for the first report card, but such lack of community spirit was frowned upon.  This time of year, I envied Tracy’s position as a Teacher’s Aide. Technically, assistants weren’t required to be on school grounds for teacher work days. They got the time off.  Zoge always volunteered for a few hours before taking Ivy to a bounce house.

Personally, I always did the bare minimum, handing out spicy cinnamon and lemon sour candy to kids and Littles while they Tricker Treated at my classroom door.  “Oh-ho! I really thought you were a skeleton! You sure tricked me! Here’s a treat!”  Hokey winks would be thrown back up to the parents and the older students.  What? If a highschooler wanted free candy from me, they were going to get it but I was going to annoy them slightly. It was practically a rule.

In real life I leaned over and fell into Janet’s lap. Muffets were on, but the crazy screams, corny jokes, and canned laughter were more background noises than anything to me in my morning haze. 

“Hmm?” Feeling my wait, Janet looked down from her phone and purred, petting me..  “You can close your eyes if you want.”

So of course I kept them wide open, staring into the middle distance.

More than just students came to the Fall Festival. It would have been a poor fundraiser if we only tried to take money from our parents. Everyone in town knew to stop on by, throw some money into a plastic bucket and get a roll of tickets so that they could bob for apples and toss rings onto glass bottles.

Dwarfing the bus loop, Fall Festival is also when I expected to see more mindfucked Littles than any other time of year.  If I’d bothered to commit their faces to memory, there was a good chance that I’d have been at least passingly familiar with a few of them during my first Little Voices meeting.

The one thing that neither Brollish nor the school board required of us teachers was to dress up in a costume. Good thing, too. I couldn’t have afforded to be ‘mistaken’ for anything other than a teacher.

Oh. That made sense.

I finished my milk, sat up and sighed dejectedly.  “You want to pick a costume out, don’t you?”

Janet’s surprise and delight was so genuine that it hurt.  “I really do!” she shoved her phone in my face.  “Here, what do you think?”

I leaned back like the phone was an overeager dog.  “Pee & Gee’s Moisturizing Diaper Rash Gel?”  That wasn’t a costume on screen, but an online shopping ad for green goop that looked like it would harden hair better than it would soothe bottoms.

“Ooops!” Janet turned her phone away and started thumbing at it.. “Sorry. Just getting some things delivered from DiaperDash.”  The woman who regularly stripped and washed me seemed embarrassed for some reason.  “Hopefully by later this afternoon.”  The phone came back at a less intrusive distance. “How about this?”

The image on screen was of a woman in a kangaroo costume. The kangaroo’s pouch was modified and moved up closer to the chest and allowed a space for the legs to dangle out like a proper baby harness, but hid the legs beneath a detachable flap. The baby costume was just a long sleeved shirt and a hoodie with ears.

“Mommaroo and Joey?” I said, reading off the official “That’s very nice Janet, but I don’t know how you’re going to fit into the pouch.”

“Ha. Ha. Clark.” Janet rolled her eyes.  “What do you really think?”

“So I have to be carried around by you all day?”  I said.

Janet’s lips puckered in thought. “Not necessarily. I can take you out of the pouch if you want to play or ride one of the rides.”

She let me take her phone from her and I pointed to what I saw as the design flaws. “I thought I didn’t have to show people my diaper in public anymore,” I said. “This would be forcing the choice to get carried around by you, or have everyone see it.”

“You could have something on over it.” I did not react. I might have been my own picture day retake photo.  The pause grew longer. “I don’t see why you’re so hung up about…” she held her palms out to no one in particular.  “Okay. No. You’re right. That’s fine. No Mommaroo and Joey.”  She seemed disappointed.

My gut gurgled slightly. “Thank you,” I told her.  Janet’s acquiescence was more strategic than anything.  The Fall Festival for some was Oakshire’s Event of the Season. She couldn’t have me throwing a temper tantrum.  That was an inch she’d give me, so I’d take my due ten yards.

“Okay,” she thumbed through.  “How about this?”

I was pre-loading my objection before my eyes could focus on the image when my head whipped around to the sound of blaring trumpets playing a corny pseudo medieval fanfare.  A Little frowning on a king’s throne wearing crown and diaper.

Just like all Monkeez commercials, the Little boy didn’t talk so that the footage could be reshot with an actual baby but the audio kept the same and aired in different Little-centric markets.  “Old King Cole was a sad Little soul, for a wet and leaky diaper had he.” The announcer spoke over the footage.  The Little on screen made a harlequin frown and bowed his legs out the way we all tended to do when pee was dribbling down our thighs.  The poor bastard still had enough of his wits about him to play act.

“So he called for one that could stop leaks. It is Monkeez, my lord for thee.” Sliding in on a golden ottoman, a package of Monkeez entered the frame with the package showing a Little on it of course.

I almost ignored the building pressure in my bottom. The heavy cream of the morning milk had threatened to put me to sleep, but it had woken other things up.

The camera shifted to a picture of an open diaper with a femine hand brushing the insides to show the features the same way that a woman on the nightly news might gesture towards the winning lottery numbers.  “Monkeez have leakage control shields and an extra absorbent core that protects from leaks like no other diaper. With extra firm tabs to keep everything in place they provide leakage protection that’s fit for a king.”

“Now Monkeez are the royal choice guaranteed to make this king rejoice.” Changed into a fresh diaper between takes, the Little ‘king’ bounced on the balls of his feet and clapped his hands, no better than a baby.  “Monkeez: Happily Ev-.”

“Can you please turn the T.V. off?!” I shouted louder than I meant to. 
Janet reached for the remote and flipped the screen off.  “Okay, okay.  Is the noise bothering you?”

“Yeah,” I half-lied. “Sure.  I’m just feeling kind of overstimulated.”

She looked disturbed. “Overstimulated?”

“Not like that!” I yelped, embarrassed.

“Like what?”

We were both doing great at not talking about last night. So why start now?  “Just let me see the next costume.”

That got her attention.  “Here, what about this?”  She handed me her phone back.  It didn’t take me three seconds to reject it.

“No thanks.”

“Awwww,” Janet whined. “Why not? I thought it looked cute.” She turned it around and pointed to the duo. These models were an Amazon and Little. “See? I’m the cowgirl, and the horse is part of the costume so I walk around in the inflatable half and it looks like I’m riding it.”  As if I couldn’t see that from the product photo. 

“Yeah,” I rolled my eyes. “And you want me to be the dumb cow that got roped.”

Janet scoffed. “What? No! That’s just part of the costume. It gives you a harness so you can walk but I don’t have to worry about you getting lost.” 

A rock hit my stomach and settled in, nestling down into my lower intestines right by my sphincter muscle. Over the last week my bowels had started to catch up with my bladder in just how worthless they were.  The discomfort I felt wasn’t half as great or urgent as it had been at the doctor’s office, but not pushing things out was starting to feel just as pointless as holding my urine.

If holding my bladder was akin to trying holding a mug of coffee all day, not messing myself in the moment felt like I had a weighted gauntlet with an itchy wool interior. It was easy to ignore the cup of coffee to the point where it was possible to set it down and forget it if I wasn’t careful.  Conversely, the gauntlet added a weight and discomfort with every movement and every stillness that was harder and harder to ignore.  Eventually, I’d give in and take the gauntlet off so that I could scratch that itch, and all the weight would leave me alongside my dignity. But at least I’d be relieved of the weight and the irritating urge to scratch.

“Janet, can I go to the bathroom please?”

The Amazon looked like she’d broken herself out of a light trance. “Honey, I just changed you. You can’t be that wet, yet.”

“No,” I felt myself grow flustered. “I have to poop.”  Why was it still so fucking embarrassing to say out loud?  Shame was the downside to potty training’s autonomy.

“You almost peed on me,”  Janet retorted. “I think we’re way past potty training, sweetie.”  She seemed to almost catch herself then doubled down instead. “No. Sweetie doesn’t count.”

I tried to rebut but got bowled over. “Come on, that’s not-”

“I think you’re just trying to redirect the conversation because if you stall long enough I’ll have to pick out a costume and then you can make me feel bad for not picking out one you liked.  I know you.”  She gave me a smug smirk and crossed her arms over her chest triumphantly.

Janet may have been an Amazon trying her best, but she was still an Amazon. Any inch I gave, she’d take and drag the entire football stadium back in her direction. Getting naked and bathing was negotiable, diapers were still a hard limit she would not let herself cross.

Fine. I’d hold it, easily enough. I knew enough places around the house to poop in peace and Janet wouldn’t hound me all day.  In a worst case scenario I could wince and moan until after lunch and use the privacy of my crib.

“That’s not it at all,” I said. “It’s just a dumb costume that makes me look stupid.”

“I’d be wearing an inflatable horse,” she countered. “I’d look silly. You’d look cute.”  I didn’t want to look cute.  Slowly, tantalizingly, Janet zoomed in on the picture of the Little in the cow suit.  “It says the udder attachments actually squirt,” she cooed playfully at me.  “It would be very easy to fill them up with milk and have you ‘accidentally’ squirt Miss Ambrose or Miss Forrest.”

Okay, she kind of did know me.  “No.”

Janet threw her head back into the couch cushions.  “Can you give me more to work with?”

“You’re in charge all the time,” I said. “Why can’t I be in charge for costumes?”

“That’s why I’m letting you pick it out, honey.”  She just wasn’t getting it.

I slipped down onto the floor and walked around to her lap.  “Mommy and baby, Mommaroo and Joey, Cowgirl and Cow,” I ticked off on my fingers. “Who has the power in that dynamic?”

What I was really asking for- more like bluffing if I’m being honest- hit her. “You want my costume to be lesser than yours.”

“Yes!” I pointed. “That!” That hadn’t been my plan at all. I hadn’t had one starting out, but that was a suitable obstacle to throw up.  It’s remarkable what lies can become truth under the right circumstances.

My obstacle wasn’t enough for her.  Within seconds she scrolling through ready made options to order.

“Shark and victim?” She offered. “You get a full body costume, I get a fake bloody t-shirt.”

The blood stains were on the breasts. “No.”

“Mad scientist and flesh golem?”

“Creator and creation?” I wrinkled my nose. “I don’t think so.”

“They’ve got it with the sizes switched. You could be the mad scientist.”

“And remind myself that I used to be a teacher?” That was a reach and I didn’t care.

“You’re just being difficult.”

“Maybe.”

“I didn’t like that one anyway. Wise Wizard and Owl Familiar?”

“No fake beards.”

“A flower and a tiny bumble bee?”

“Vaguely sexual, and there’s a million bay-bee jokes in there.”

“Milk and cookies?”

“No. Just no.”

Janet put the phone down and yanked me back up so that I was standing on her lap, her arms steadying me.  “Then what? What do you want?” Her voice turned into a kind of rumbling gargle. “You come up with something creative, Mister Silly Sock Day.”  She was getting aggravated and trying to play it off as being silly.  Maybe it was the other way around.

I breathed in.  If Janet wanted this inch, I’d make her give me the entire mile.  “Let’s be silly and cross dress.” That didn’t sound right. “Sorta.  Let me wear that stupid outfit that looked like my teacher clothes. You go to a pharmacy and buy diapers in your size.  Get some markers and decorate them so they look like Monkeez and-”

“Absolutely not.”  

“No, no, no. Hear me out, Mommy.” I was grinning ear to ear. “It’ll be a funny subversion of the status quo!. Plus if you have to go to the bathroom, you can just go and it’ll be part of the costume!  We can have leash system and you can secure it to my wrist so I can’t run away, but the majority of the harness will be on your chest!” A beat. “It’ll save a lot of money since we have most of the materials.”

I was sorely tempted to suggest that I could also check said costume diaper and ask all sorts of personal and invasive questions that any self respecting adult would shudder at.  I was getting better at bear poking and knowing when to pull back.

Janet, admittedly, was polite enough to let me finish my absurd pitch.  “Nice try,” she said with finality. “No.”

I didn’t think it would work.  “Oh come on, Mommy! It’ll be fun!”

“Clark…” she warned. 

I’d overstepped. She’d trained herself to hear the insincerity in my voice. Now, if only she could train herself to listen when I wasn’t on the verge of tears.

 “Why do we have to coordinate costumes at all?” A faint buzzing moan played at my throat. “Why can’t I just be what I wanna be, and you be what you wanna be?”

While still keeping me steady on her lap, Janet averted her gaze.  “This is going to be our first Fall Festival together,” Janet said. “I want it to be special, ya know?”

Our first.  If I had my way, it’d be our last, too. I wouldn’t get a chance to get my way unless things got better at home.  “What about something less…I don’t know…cutesy?”

“You think mad scientist and flesh golem are cutesy?”

I offered  only a shrug in reply.  Something about it just wasn’t hitting the mark. If Janet was going to earn this small insignificant victory from me, it’d have to be worth my while. I wouldn’t fake amusement, and it’d be better for me if I didn’t have to create my own.

My legs shaky, I was lowered back down to the carpet by a temporarily defeated Janet.  “I’ll think of something,” she whispered mostly to herself.  “You can go play…”

My cheeks clenched and I turned around to go search for Lion. If memory served me right he would still be on the nursery floor where I’d tossed him.  If I was going to poop, I needed something to squeeze the life out of and then curse when I finally broke down and asked Janet to wipe me. 

“Wait!”  Janet half yelled, sounding excited. “What about this?!”

I didn’t even have to turn around. She bounded off the couch and circled around me. “Huh? Huh?  Scary. Kinda cute. Very clever. And you’re kind of the star and I’m kind of the sidekick?”

She’d switched over from one cheesy costume site to another: ColdConcept.com  “Isn’t this place for middle schoolers that want to look like edgy highschoolers and for highschoolers who don’t know what goth, punk, or college style really looks like?”

“Used to be, back when we were kids,” Janet agreed. “They just aged up with us and cash in on nostalgia.”

That Froidian slip earned her selection actual consideration.  I leaned over and inspected her choice.  My heart leapt into my throat. This lady really did know me.  If the past several months hadn’t happened the duo costume is exactly the sort of thing I could have talked myself into going along with.

Almost.

“My costume is a onesie…”

“Onesie still covers your diaper,” she replied.  “I’ll check the weather, but I think it’ll be warm enough after eight or nine…”  She was reeling me in and she knew it.

“No.”

“I’ll get you pants to wear over the onesie if you really want…”  The smile and cheeriness in her tone were becoming infectious.

“Still no.”

She was all teeth and beaming eyes.  “You’ll get to pretend to zap me…”

I’d get to pretend to zap her.  In public.  “And you’ll roar in pain? Like in the movie? Not ignore me when it gets old to you.”  Dang it! Now I was starting to grin!

“Ten times,” she offered. “I still want to be able to talk.”

“Twenty,” I countered.

“Ten.”

“Fifteen.”

“Ten.”

“Twelve.”

“Five.”

I growled. “Fine, but it has to be ten, and no exceptions.  If I zap you in front of somebody’s parents wanting to have a teacher conference or whatever, you get zapped.”

She chuckled. “You’d be doing me a favor there, honey.  Deal.”  She reached out her hand. I gripped her fingers as hard as I could and we shook on it.

Before I went back to my room, I wondered aloud.  “Hey. About that costume.”  Not many, if any, would have thought of something that clever and oddly appealing.  Not even…I didn’t let myself finish the thought. “It’s not Muffets.  How’d you think of it?”

Proudly Janet tucked her phone away. “Little Voices, last week. I was eavesdropping with you.  First rule of being an involved Mommy: Pay attention to what your Little is paying attention to.  I know you like more things than just Muffets.”  The nail in the coffin. “I kind of like this stuff, too.” 

A wise strategy. Good parenting. Might be bad for me in the long run.  No matter. Let Janet have her inches upon miles. I’d make my compromises where I could find them and strike harder when the opportunity presented itself and take it all back from someone else.  On some level, I’d already decided I’d take this day out on Beouf somehow.  In the meantime I was going to go find a quiet place to take a dump.

“Hey,” Janet called after me. “Do you want to help me grade papers later?  Maybe we could do some of that yoga together this afternoon?”

“Yeah,” I replied without thinking.  “Yeah, I think I’d like that.”

“Kay kay.  Say hi to Lion for me.”

“I will.”