I knew better than to ask.
I had once asked what was inside an important backpack and received a detailed presentation involving three plastic animals, a spoon, two rocks, a piece of string, a broken crayon, and something described only as a treasure.
None of those items had been required for the fifteen-minute errand we were attempting that day.
Apparently that had not mattered.
The bathroom door opened.
“I’m done!”
“Wonderful.
Shoes.”
“I already have shoes.”
I looked down.
Bare feet.
“No, you do not.”
The child looked down too, genuinely surprised.
This was parenthood in its purest form.
You could be standing directly in front of evidence and still find yourself negotiating whether reality had occurred.
Eventually, everyone had footwear.
Everyone had water.
Nobody was bleeding.
I decided these were excellent conditions and moved quickly before circumstances changed.
We reached the car.
Then one child said, “I forgot my water bottle.”
I stared through the windshield.
The water bottle was visible on the kitchen counter through the front window.
For half a second I considered pretending I had not heard.
Then I remembered the grocery store.
A child without water in a grocery store could turn aisle six into a humanitarian crisis.
I went back inside.
When I returned, the children were arguing about who had looked at whom.
“You looked at me.”
“I’m allowed to look.”
“Not like that.”
“What does that even mean?” I asked.
Neither answered.
I started the car.
Thirty-seven minutes after deciding we needed milk, we finally left the driveway.
And this was only the beginning.
At the store, I made my first strategic mistake before we even crossed the parking lot.
I did not specify that we were buying only three things.
The automatic doors opened.
Both children saw the snack display.
“Can we get—”
“No.”
I had answered before the product was identified.
Experience.
“But you don’t even know what I was going to say.”
“I know enough.”
We got a cart.
One child wanted to ride inside it.
The other wanted to push it.
Both wishes were incompatible with physics, safety, and one another.
After a negotiation that would never appear in any parenting book, we moved toward the dairy section.
Slowly.
Impossibly slowly.
People without children walked past us with purpose.
They selected products and continued moving.
I remembered that life.
