The day in the life of a wife and mother.

[pre]MY 100% MY oWN DaY

I was sitting by the corner. And it started to rain so I opened the umbrella my mother had given me for Christmas. It was red and BIG. So big it needs capitals. I mean I’m not talking about your ordinary day to day, 65-75% protection umbrella. I’m talking about something so BIG that you have circle of dry ground surrounding you.

With an umbrella like that you attract a lot of looks. Most of them aren’t all that friendly. People give you little slanted 40%-52% warmth looks out of the corner of their eyes. I understand why they’re all so grumpy though. I would be too if I was dragged out of my 100% my own day to look at someone’s BIG red umbrella.

It was 4:56 when my son got off the bus. He was four minutes later than usual. But the bus was probably delayed by the rain (the public transportation in this city is just shameful!) and I didn’t worry. I ran forward and enveloped him in the circle that always seemed to follow my BIG red umbrella. He was shivering slightly and I scolded him about forgetting to bring his jacket to school. He grumbled his way out of it making sideways glances at the sidewalk. Only seven years old and he wanted to be 101% grown up. It should make me sad but I found it to be most natural.

We got home and I put him in a bubble bath. I made it just the way he liked it, the bubbles were scented with lavender and the water was only lukewarm. It was 99% perfect and just right. Sometimes things are not supposed to be 100% right.

There is one thing I am 76% sure you are thinking about right now. And that is what about my husband? What about love, love, love, love, love, love?

I could tell you how we met and the story would most certainly be about 96% accurate (years blunt memory better than anything else). However, I feel that our relationship can be 100% expressed through a little story.

I was walking home one day carrying the groceries. It was a terribly windy day. The leaves were blown off the trees and onto the streets making little swirling patterns. It would have been very pretty except it was cold and there was trash all over the street. If memory serves me correctly there was even a dead pigeon on the street. I wonder what happened to it? It most definitely did not receive an official funeral. Probably for the best anyhow, who would attend a pigeon funeral?

As I was walking down the street one of the bags fell from my hands. It was windy after all and there were a lot of groceries. The eggs shattered but everything else remained relatively unharmed. About …never mind. Anyhow, I decided it would be best if I gathered together the groceries I cold after dropping what was left of the eggs in the trash on the corner. While I was kneeling down a boy stopped and was on his knees next to me.

He was very young. I don’t suppose he could have been outside of high school. He had the intellectual look. I knew just from looking at him what his parents thought of him. Now, this story is over and just needs to be wrapped up. Just like one of my son’s lunches, with clear cellophane.

I didn’t sleep with him. I have been a 100% faithful wife. But that night as my husband and I had sex I fantasized him. I imagined his skinny, young, slightly sickly body on top of me instead of the rather than the 110% beautiful body of my husband.

But I imagine you could have figured that out.

The second great love of my life was 206% my son. However, there is no story that can explain it. Somehow that red-faced, squirmy, worm like creature that emerged from the blood and mucus inside my uterus is over any percent of perfect.

Sometimes though I feel so unhappy. I don’t really understand but sometimes it’s like there’s someone operating the wheels of my body. And I get to sit back and eat popcorn (that is 100% perfect) and watch some other woman, that really does appear to be me, love my husband and my son.

So I wrote this on a 100% white cotton dress. And I’m putting it away in a hand me downs box that will never be used. At least I’m 98% sure it won’t be used.

It’s almost time take my son out of his bath.

Now when I remember to read this there is one other thing I need to remember.

Note to Self: I 100% love you. I absolutely 110% love your husband. I most certainly am inexorably in love with your son. Remember he is beyond percents. And remember the consequences of leaving them. And take a deep breath. Now you need to choose and survive 100% carefully. [/pre]

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