my son and i are doing what? something over the kitchen table. oh, i am cutting and lifting two pieces of McCain's cheap-ass marble cake out onto two mismatched saucers. what are we talking about? i can't remember. but he says something about thirty years from now and i say, oh, wait, how old will i be?
oh, i remember now. we have been to the library and we have taken out books to read. he has appraised the return date and as i cut the cake he imagines aloud, what if they were stamped to be returned thirty years from today?
again i try to tabulate, how old will i be? (what year is it?) will i even be alive in thirty years?
he looks at me and says, mom, you'll be 72. you're, like, healthy. you should be alive, barring a car accident or a heart attack or, as he puts it, something stupid.
what about murder, i ask?
oh, that would suck, he responds. i mean, it would really suck, he adds for emphasis. if i'm murdered, i want to be, like, shot dead, not cut up, or remember what happened to the guy in Fargo, in the wood chipper? nothing like that.
ya, me too, i say, or, me either.
we eat our cake.
