A Simple Story

“Can’t you just drop me off at home first?” I whined.

“No sugar, I’m already late for the appointment. You’ll have to come with me.”

I rolled my eyes. At least I’d loaded The Lord of the Rings on my tablet before school let out and would have something to read while we waited for the stupid oil change to be over.

“Why don’t we just buy an electric car? You drive an hour every day to work. That is so much carbon—it’s gross.”

“This car is paid for, and anyway, I heard buying any new car creates more emissions than just keeping what you already drive.”

“I doubt that’s true if you drive as much as you do,” I grumbled. “But whatever. It’s not my choice.”

Mom plugged her laptop into one of the work stations in the service waiting room, her neon pink nails rapidly tippy-tapping, joining the percussive rhythm of the air conditioner and whirring machinery on the other side of the door.

I sat down on a gray pleather sofa behind her.

I’d left off at Bilbo’s birthday party at lunch. He had just begun his toast, and his guests were cheering him on, after he thanked them for coming and announced he was turning eleventy-one. “This was the sort of stuff they liked: short and obvious.”

Given that my progress bar was still at 1%, I assumed Tolkien didn’t write in the preferred Hobbit fashion.

Before carrying on, I decided to make myself a cup of coffee. I chose a decaf vanilla latte from the touch screen on the shiny machine in the waiting room. ESPN blared on the television next to the coffee station. Four talking heads bobbed up and down, wildly agreeing with each other. They showed a replay. Yellow circles and arrows emphasized a foot clearly over a white line spray-painted on dark green turf. The four men’s heads reappeared; the replay looped over and over at the bottom of the screen.

“Yes, clearly out of bounds,” a man with a neck as thick as my thigh agreed as the image continued playing, although shown from a different angle.

Such a fuss for such a simple story.

How much validation is required to confirm what we all just saw with our own eyeballs?

Back in the car, my mom’s podcast, recapping the Real Housewives of Wherever, came on. It was the same color, but a different hue than the ESPN show. A few people were talking about what they saw, but instead of following the rules of a game, they analyzed whether we all saw the same violation of the rules of polite society. I actually didn’t mind it as much.

I liked the ambiguity. That sometimes calling another woman a cunt in her own home might not be rude, depending upon what was immediately said, or implied, before.

“I can’t believe you’re defending her!” One of the podcasters trilled indignantly. “She’s such a narcissist.”

“I know, I know, she’s the absolute worst. But let’s not forget, this wasn’t the first time she’d been baited. She knew exactly what she was doing,” the cohost defended, “I mean, imagine, I invite you over. I offer you a glass of wine, and then when you accept, I’m like, “This early? Are you sure?” That’s cunty. She was being a cunt.”

“Ok, sure, yes, you’re right. That was rude. But I don’t know…I just hate that word.”

Granted, Mom’s sedan didn’t have a screen, and there was no way we could watch an instant replay of the fight, even if the podcasters showed it on their YouTube channel, but I liked that there wasn’t a bright line. The camera captured the play, but whether it was out of bounds was subjective.

I must’ve been too quiet, because Mom picked up that I was listening and quickly switched over to the top hits of the 2000s on Spotify.

“Nooo. Not Sam’s, too,” I whined when we didn’t take the exit to our house.

“Yes, sugar.”

“Can’t you drop me off first?”

“With traffic, dropping you off would add at least forty minutes. This will be quick. It’s just a pick-up; we don’t even have to go inside the store.”

I rolled my eyes, and picked up my tablet to keep reading. Still no dent in my progress bar. I tried tuning out Mr. Brightside while we waited for the groceries. We parked in Mom’s favorite spot, lucky number eight. It took three or four more songs before someone came out with our order. The same detergent. The same milk. Same bulk order of apples, bread, and eggs.

The people of the Shire sure like the familiar.

Boring is better than queer.

After I helped unload the groceries, I went to my room and kept reading.

Frodo was upset when Gandalf told him there was only one way to destroy his evil Ring. He essentially whined, “Why me? Why was I chosen”

Gandalf replied, “Well, it wasn’t for your wits or power. But you have been chosen, and you must therefore make use of such strength and heart and wits as you have.”

That made me laugh, sassy old wizard.

At dinner, Mom had the news on mute. She didn’t think it was appropriate for me to watch it, so I sat with my back to the TV. But I caught glances every now and then, when she’d get up to pour another glass of wine, or to bring more rolls to the table. We watched a daily morning news show at school, and I’d already seen the stories about the tariffs and famine.

I told Mom my legs were sore. “It’s not like they hurt the way they do after soccer practice or after running a lot. They just ache, like, all the time.”

“Sounds like growing pains. I had them when I was about your age,” she said. “There’s a jar of Epsom salt below my sink in the bathroom. Use two scoops in your bath tonight. It’ll help.”

I’d shot up two inches since February. My jeans hoovered around my shins, but my waist wouldn’t hold up the new jeans she bought. “It’s an awkward stage,” Mom assured me, “You’ll grow into them soon.”

She suggested I wear shorts now that the weather was warmer, but I liked my old jeans. I wasn’t ready to put them in the donation bin.

I added salt to the bath and laid the teakwood tray I bought Mom for Mother’s Day last year across the tub to prop up my tablet. Frodo surprised Gandalf. He immediately concluded he had no choice but to exile himself from the Shire, to protect it from the surrounding Darkness attracted to the Ring. Apparently, given hobbits’ fondness for comfort and familiarity, Gandalf didn’t expect him to readily recognize the requisite sacrifice.

“Hobbits really are amazing creatures,” Gandalf exclaimed.

When the water turned cold, I pulled the plug, and watched the vortex form around the drain. I poked my finger into it, playing with the suction until goosebumps ran up and down my arms. After drying off, I smothered my face in acne cream and lotion as the water gurgled down the pipe. I zipped up my purple onesie pajamas and snuggled into bed. Turning on my reading light, I picked the tablet back up, even though I only had a few minutes before Mom would come in to say goodnight.

“Thank you, sugar, for all of your help today. I know running errands after school isn’t the most fun way to spend an afternoon.”

“No problem.”

“Is anything wrong?”

“I dunno. I think…Sometimes, I just feel like this isn’t what I signed up for.”

“What do you mean?”

“I guess, so much is changing right now, like with going to junior high next year. And it’s not just that—it’s big stuff too, like, climate change and war. It feels like nobody is doing anything about these huge problems. But we’re still doing everyday things, like watching sports, picking up groceries and going to school, like everything is normal. Is it weird to feel overwhelmed and bored?”

My mom smiled wearily. “No, it’s not weird. It’s very relatable. I think both feelings—overwhelm and boredom—they both come from not being in control. Someone else, or something else, picks the priority, the location, or the plan, without your influence. They might seem like opposites, but I think you can feel both—especially right now, when you’re learning so much about things you can’t do anything about.”

No wonder hobbits like simple stories.

“You didn’t choose this, sugar. No one gets to choose the time we’re born into. We just do the best with what we have. And as hard as times seem right now, I wouldn’t rather be born at any other place, or at any other time. We’re extraordinarily good at noticing what we’re doing wrong. But more people are living longer, more peaceful, and more prosperous lives than at any other point in history. People are amazing.”

“That’s hard to believe,” I said, thinking about a kid starving half a world away, dying a preventable death.

“But it’s true,” she insisted. “We all share the same energy. The more love, the more inspiration, the more delight you feel, it spreads. Try putting your focus there, sugar. But first, get some sleep.” She kissed my forehead and turned out the light.

I laid awake in the dark for a while, like I did every night, my thoughts settling like dust before drifting off.

I wasn’t sure if I believed her. I was definitely going to fact check whether the world was actually more peaceful and safer in the morning. But I guess being asked to focus on growing light was a preferable quest to Frodo’s—less perilous than running away from a nebulous, evil darkness.

At the very least, it was something I could do.

And that did feel good.

Like to start to a simple story.