Read by Sarah Gain
(For the full podcast of the night, please click here)
I’m not sure what possessed me the other day at the Uptown Espresso, but I think it was my baby girl. Separation is hard on her, and usually she tugs so hard that I leave part of myself with her. I walk around in a fog while she cries and cries. This time the opposite must have happened: she must have left a part of herself with me.
So I was standing in line waiting for a single tall Americano when I saw a huge container of Hershey’s Chocolate Syrup. I felt compelled to press on the squirter. Lovely glops of brown chocolate started splashing on the counter! When I stuck my hand in the chocolate and smeared it around, the resulting patterns were gorgeous. I put my hand in my mouth (Wow!) and then smeared it around my forehead and in my hair. Someone started shouting, and they sure sounded angry, but the Hershey’s syrup was way more interesting.
Then somebody took hold of me, pulled me away, sat me down at a table, and started to play tug-of-war with some napkins, swiping at my face. Fun, fun, fun! But gradually, I collected myself. What had gotten into me?
I went back in line, because I still wanted my single tall Americano. The Hershey’s syrup was gone, so no temptation there, and I was just about to order when a woman came in with a big, white dog.
I pointed and said, “Dog!” The dog wagged her tail, but nobody else paid attention.
“Dog!” I said again, and dropped to my hands and knees to chase after the dog and grab its fur. The dog loved the attention and licked some of the chocolate off my face. This was a pity, as I had been saving it for later. The woman started screaming and the dog started barking. To be friendly, I barked back.
The shouting got louder and I was placed at a table again, where someone got out a bottle of hand sanitizer and started giving me a hand massage with it.
I collected myself again. The other patrons--none of whom, I noticed, had children with them--kept muttering and giving me sidelong glances. Boy, this was getting embarrassing.
But honestly! Could I just have one lousy single tall Americano? Was that asking too much? So after the dog left, I gave it one more try. I went straight to the counter, pushing aside the other people who were hanging around there, pointed to the espresso machine, and said, “Dat!”
In retrospect, I have to say that the barista was patient above and beyond the call of duty.
“Ma’am, do you want coffee?” she asked.
I clapped my hands. “Dat!” I said.
“Single short mocha with whipped cream on top?” she asked.
“Dat!” I said, and pointed to the espresso machine.
After several tries, we got it close enough--a single decaf nonfat latte. I guessed I could live without the caffeine, and to tell the truth, milk was starting to sound really good right now. I clapped my hands and she made the latte and handed it to me.
Just to see what would happen, I put my fist inside the cup. Big mistake! It was really hot! It burned my hand. When I pulled my hand away, the cup tipped over and all the coffee spilled onto my stomach, burning it.
There was a moment of shock--like, how could this happen to me? I took a deep breath while the horror of it sunk in, and then I dropped to the floor and wailed at the top of my lungs.
What happened next I can only reconstruct from secondhand accounts, because I myself was in an agony of despair. Some kind espresso shop patron dug my cell phone out of my purse and called my husband--who, it turned out, had been waiting across the street in case my baby got separation anxiety. (My baby hadn’t. In fact, she’d completely finished the New York Times crossword puzzle.) My husband rushed over, holding my baby.
“Dollie?” I asked. I reached out to my baby with both arms and started pulling.
“Hey, gently!” said my husband. Somebody stroked the back of my hand to show me what gentle felt like. I let go and patted my baby until I felt like myself again, and then I took her in my arms.
*
The next time I went to my moms’ support group, I brought up the incident. Several of the other moms nodded their heads and told me they could relate. Samantha had jumped into a fountain at the park and caught a chill. Paula had run out of the car while her husband was driving and gone dumpster-diving for a Tickle-Me Elmo doll. Elise had bitten a policeman and spent the night in jail. So, they told me, it could have been a lot worse.
I thanked them all, and then we sang the Barney “Clean Up” song, picked up the blocks off the floor, and followed our babies into the kitchen for snack.
(c) Kristin King, 2018
Kristin King lives with her spouse and two children in the United States, enjoying the rain of Seattle. She’s written a collection of stories called Misfits from the Beehive State and is currently hard at work on a novel about time travel. She blogs at kristinking.wordpress.com.
Sarah Gain is Brummie by birth but comes with a whole host of other accents, fortunately. Recent performances include multiple roles in a four-person tour of Much Ado About Nothing and Holly Claus for Santa's Christmas Wish, covering Shakespeare to St Nicholas in one fell swoop.
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