The exercise:
Write about something or someone that has been: usurped.
After spending the morning with Max and Kat, Sam and Sarah headed back to Vancouver around lunch time. It was a quick visit but a good one, I thought.
Max seemed to agree.
Mine:
Yesterday morning we took Sam's rental car to town, so I had to grab Max's car seat out of our car before Kat left for work. When it was time to get going I installed it and asked him if he wanted me in the backseat beside him. He said yes, as I figured he would.
Sam drove us to the coffee shop and we hung out there for a while. Then it was time to get back in the car to make the short drive to the park. We got him buckled in, with Sarah helping from the backseat. I asked him if he wanted her back there with him... and he said yes.
And told me to sit up front.
Okay. I was glad he was getting comfortable with her but was a touch surprised. We got to the park without even a whiff of trouble from the backseat and had a good time playing there.
When it was time to get going for lunch Max was not especially happy. I had him buckled in when things started getting worse, so I brought him out and the two of us sat in the shade of a tree and talked things over.
I eventually figured out a way to get him back in there and he calmed down, which was a relief. I brought him back over, got him buckled in... and then he got upset at the idea of me sitting beside him.
"Do you want Sarah back there with you?"
"Yeah!"
That was when I officially felt like my position had been usurped.
2 comments:
You've not been usurped, you're just not a novelty :) Either that or Max is starting life as a ladies' man very young indeed... :-D It sounds like you're getting better at talking him down when he gets agitated as well, and that'll be a very useful skill for you. Just wait until he wants you sat back there with him and there's only you to drive!
Usurped
"...usurped," said Angie, scratching her head. A knitting needle fell out of a knot of tangled hair and bounced on the floor with a twanging sound, but neither she nor Bettie appeared to notice.
"I did not!" Bettie's indignation was loud enough to be heard on the stage, and a couple of the actors suddenly turned slightly or raised their hands that might have indicated they were hiding laughter, but of course they were professionals and so couldn't be laughing.
"Did what?" Angie turned slightly in her seat and her skirt spread itself over the lap of the woman sat next to her, who tried ineffectually to push it away. It felt like an old Brillo pad that had been left outside in the rain and was approximately the same colour.
"Slurp!" said Bettie. She rummaged in her handbag for the little paper bag she was eating from. Lipsticks cascaded over the sides, bounced on the floor of the circle and then trickled over the edge into the stalls. "Hah! See," she said, holding up a bag, "liquorice allsorts! You can't slurp them!"
"You can if they melt," said Angie. "I never said you slurped."
"What did you say then?"
"Does it matter? We'd all rather know what the actors are saying." The man with the high-pitched voice and almost spherical waist leaned back in his seat, a smug look on his face. Around him various well-dressed folks murmured soft agreement.
"But that's what I was saying," said Angie patiently. "They all waiting at the moment because they think the Prince is about to come in and give them all gifts on account of his father, the King, dying in the previous act, only you wouldn't know it because he sang about it for twenty-five minutes and then did an encore. But they don't know, and the Prince does, that he's been usurped and so he's actually going to come in and ask them for money to raise an army and take his throne back."
"Coo!" said Bettie. "That's all a bit much, isn't it?"
"Well, it's a bit like your mum and her Uncle Joey and his kids last Christmas," said Angie. "Remember when he said he was going to dip into their college fund–"
"Madam!" said the fat man. This time he got only stoney glares from the people around him. "What?"
"Actually," said a lady with a voice so highly polished it actually raised tiny sparkles in the air when she spoke, "I'd like to hear about Christmas. The next aria does go on a bit."
"And it's obvious the composer stuck it in as filler," said a man next to her. "So tell us, did Joey dip into the college fund?"
"Well," said Angie trying not to grin too widely, "it all really starts with a pan of mashed potatoe and Joey's nephew Nicky and a high-heeled shoe..."
Greg - the very next day. In fact, I'm pretty sure that happened before I even read this comment. Thankfully it didn't take much to convince him we weren't going anywhere with the both of us back there and nobody to sit up front to drive.
Ah, I do enjoy hearing from these two. In this setting. Not during a performance I'm attending.
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