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As the Woot Turns

Episode 3: The Kids Are All Home

"You look sad."

Sylvia stopped paying attention to Craig in hopes he might order her coffee drink correctly and looked over at the boy sitting with a large globe at the table next to her. "Excuse me? Young man, telling a woman she looks sad is incredibly bad form. Saying she's pretty is nice. Even offering to buy a woman an iced latte would be acceptable, though perhaps not at your age. But telling a lady she looks sad just isn't right."

"Sorry."

Well, you should be. But I accept your apology." She made a mental note to say something to the boy's mother, who was standing just behind Craig in line. Shame on her for raising such a rude creature.

"Are you sad?"

Sylvia rolled her eyes. "A little, maybe," she conceded, "but I don't see how that's any... I'm sorry, but are those handcuffs?"

The boy raised his left wrist and gave the cuffs attaching him to the globe a jiggle. "I acted out," he told her.

"Clearly."

"So why are you sad?"

"If you must know," Sylvia sighed, "I missed out on a particularly wonderful piece of furniture this afternoon. I had my heart set on this beautiful couch, but it was taken away from me by incompetents."

"Oh."

"I don't expect you to understand."

"Are incompy-tents like aliens? Because I think they might have my teacher, too." The boy stared down at his shoes as he spoke. "She was really nice. Ms. Estes taught me about dinosaurs and helped me with my stupid math drills and she let me be in charge of taking care of Harry for a whole month one time. She was so cool."

"Harry?"

"Our classroom hamster."

"Right. Of course." Sylvia suddenly felt silly for even mentioning the couch. Just the idea that it was now causing her more emotional distress was off-putting. "Please continue."

The boy shrugged. "I guess I was just hoping you might be sad with me. All Mom keeps saying is how she's going to hurt Uncle Alex for giving me these handcuffs."

"Well, I don't see any reason why not. We can be sad together, if you like. But life goes on, you know. We can't be sad forever. I'm going to have to somehow put together an entirely new design concept for my living room, though I have no idea how I'll find the time, honestly. And you? Maybe your new teacher won't be so bad. You do have a new teacher, yes?"

"She's a robot."

"Oh. That might make things difficult at first, I imagine."

"Yeah."

Sylvia waved it off. "Let's not think about that right now. Let's just stare out of this coffeeshop window, sigh forlornly, and think about our lives before they were so rudely interrupted by Life. How does that sound?"

The boy smiled. "My name's Jake."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Jake. I'm Sylvia. Oh, and before we wallow in ennui, please remind me to give your mother a stern talking to about how you speak to strangers once she comes back."

The End