Tattling drives me insane. As if I don’t have enough shit to keep up with, now you bring to me on a golden platter something you know is going to upset me? I never really understood this growing up, like why the hell you mad at me? They are the ones doing/saying it! Confession. I was a bus monitor and the teacher’s pet until about middle school. By this time I had shifted a little into the current day, Britt, and I remember one of my teachers telling my mother she was shocked to learn about me because she had my two older siblings as well and they were soooo good. Yes, I know, my dad shares the same sentiment ( I am almost-ish done with my dad jabs). I am the baby of the family, I always feel like that explains everything you need to know. So my boys will tattle and I will say “I don’t want to hear it” but of course in a more colorful way. Although they are aware I am genuinely not interested in what took place between them that should not have, and instead I am rather pissed off, they still occasionally will tell me…Saturday was no exception. 

The boys and I are winding through this road that is a cut through and I love the road so much. I lose cell service on this road and I go into a peaceful curvy-hilled utopia. There is a house along this road I adore, as well as the people that live there. FYI I have no fucking clue who they are! Hahaha. Ahhh that cracks me up to write. I have never really put much thought into how interesting that is. Ok, maybe I have, but writing it rang different. Anyway, since I have “known” them, they have always had a his and hers car, except this year. This year his went to an opposing color to hers and I have yet to make the time to stop and inquire why exactly, or introduce myself (yes secondly), and then tell them they make me so happy right before they would either call the cops on me or invite me in for dinner (there is rarely an in between for me). People love running and walking on this road and most of them are always with their dogs. The trees and landscaping are immaculate with the cutest little wooden fence on one side, and the deer are always chewing on some grass down in the meadow. Look, I know I am making it sound like this is a journey I make down a 10-mile-long road, but it is not, it may not even be a mile long! Truthfully, I go from one stop sign to the next and that is about it. I told you I get really into shit and have a fancy memory.

So I am cruising in peace, got my spicy Veggie Straws in my lap, crunching with my mouth open to piss the boys off, and I am happy as can be. Avery decides this beautiful little road and the peppy little smile on my face are a bit too peaceful for his liking and pulls all this shit out of nowhere about what Otis has done. I let him go on, tuned him out, entered my zone where I frolicked in the field of daisies with Bossy, licked the Veggie Straw crumbs off of my lips in slow-mo, smiled at the house with the his and her cars that are always backed in and have their assigned sides, and waited for my cue from him to snap out of it. “Didn’t you say the next person who did that would lose their tech?” This is where I would normally go a little rogue and ape-style raising my voice causing me to spew crumbs across the dashboard and hate myself for how disgusting and rabid I got. “How dare you disturb my drive and the song I am recreating with my crunching? Could you not hear the beat to Imagine by John Lennon?” But I did not, instead, I raised my eyebrow, turned my head over my right shoulder, and smirked at him in the passenger seat. “You may want to make sure your hands are clean before you start tattling.” I was like damnnnnnn momma, you get on with your badass self. Then Avery ran his fingers through his coiffed hair, looked over his left shoulder at me in the driver seat, scoffed while the sunlight came through the sunroof highlighting his freckled nose, and said “His hands are filthy.” I had nothing to say. I laughed so earnestly that I fucking spit out my Veggie Straws which subsequently popped the utopian bubble I was floating in as they tore through the thin layer that previously felt so secure. My boy. 

Let me tell you about Otis now. Otis is sitting in the backseat, saying “Yeah, I did, and it was wrong. I am sorry Mom and I am sorry Avery, I won’t do it again. If you need to take my tech I understand but Avery, Mom does not need any more stress so just stop.” His hair was all wild and careless, his random and colorful printed tube socks covering the legs that have sprouted him to my height of 5’7 this month, and his words equally worthy of “My boy”, but for an entirely different set of reasons. He is always willing to sit in the backseat and I am always willing to hand him one Veggie Straw at a time over my shoulder and occasionally not have one in hand to trick him and grab and squeeze his hand three times to tell him I LOVE YOU. He also is really quick to change the subject for both his benefit and mine which I am totally cool with, he understands wholeheartedly why I don’t want tattling and he utilizes my preference to his advantage (THAT IS WINNING) and then he puts on some happy old song and instantly my little utopian bubble forms again. Suddenly I am back “on track” and inform the boys I think this is the day I am going to stop and ask this man and woman why the fuck the husband bought a different color truck than his wife this year. I don’t know. It is just too much. This is getting out of control, what are they going to do next, pull in forward in their driveway, and swap sides? Not on my OCD watch. Now this is tattle-worthy! This is what my years as a bus monitor prepared me for. This is the reason I wore sweater vests as a child and lanyards with pens around my neck. And I know just who to tell! But my hands are covered in the red powder from the spicy Veggie Straws…filthy as fuck.