It’s Not the End of the World

I don’t think I’ll ever get married. Why should I? All it does is make you miserable. Just look at Mrs. Singer. Last year she was Miss Pace and everybody loved her. I said I’d absolutely die if I didn’t get her for sixth grade. But I did and what happened? She got married over the summer and now she’s a witch!
Then there are my parents. They’re always fighting. My father was late for dinner tonight and when he got home we were already at the table. Daddy said hello to me and Jeff. Then he turned to Mom. “Couldn’t you have waited?” he asked her. “You knew I was coming home for dinner.”

“Why didn’t you call to say you’d be late?” Mom asked.
“It’s only twenty after six. I got hung up in traffic.”
“How was I supposed to know that?” Mom
asked.
“Never mind!” My father sat down and helped himself to a slice of meat loaf and some spanish rice. He took a few mouthfuls before he said, “This rice is cold.”
“It was hot at six o’clock,” Mom told him.
Me and Jeff kept on eating without saying a word. You could feel what was going on between my parents. I wasn’t hungry any more.
Then Daddy asked, “Where’s Amy?”
“In the den,” Mom said.
“Did she eat?”
Mom didn’t answer. “I said did she eat her supper?”
“Of course she did,” Mom snapped. “What do you think I do-starve her when you’re not around?”
My father pushed his plate away and called, “Amy . . . Amy. . ..
Amy is six. When she doesn’t like what we’re having for dinner she eats a bowl of cereal instead. Then she races into the den to see her favorite TV show. But when Daddy called her she ran back to the kitchen. She gave him a kiss and said, “Hi Daddy.”
“How’s my girl?”
“Fine.”
“Sit down at the table and drink your milk,” he said.
“First a riddle,” Amy told him.
“Okay, but just one.”
Amy is driving us crazy with her riddles. Ever since she started first grade it’s been one riddle after another. And you can’t tell her you already know the answer because she doesn’t care. She’ll keep asking anyway.
“Why did the man put Band-Aids in his refrigerator?” Amy asked.
“I give up,” my father said..
“Because it had cold cuts!” Amy laughed at her joke. She was the only one who did. “You get it now? Cold cuts. The refrigerator had cold cuts! Like bologna… get it?”