Let Life Surprise You

01. I Love Monday Not

Monday morning is my worst enemy. I don't want to say goodbye to my blissful weekend, I hate to go back to my chores after having a super lazy Sunday, and I loathe this stupid traffic. But with another human being sitting in my backseat and needing to be at school in fifteen minutes, I have no choice but to dip my butt into this craziness.

Sitting in the driver's seat, I lean forward with my fingers clutching the steering wheel. My eyes are fixed on the traffic light, wishing I could burn it down with an invisible laser light coming out of my brown pupils. We've been stuck at this intersection for a good twenty minutes, and the freaking light turns green only for fifteen seconds before switching back to red. I swear I will sue the person who made this rule.

To add to that, my seven-year-old daughter hasn't stopped chirping since she woke up this morning, prompting me to bite the inner part of my cheek to refrain from snapping at her.

"Diana and Robby kissed last week," Chloe says. "Does it mean Robby is Diana's boyfriend now?"

"Uh..." I drum my fingers on the steering wheel, trying to recall any conversations with my sister about her daughter having a boyfriend. Nothing comes up. "Can be. What did Diana say about it?"

"Well, Robby never really said they are a couple but Diana thinks that they are."

"Oh." The green light blinks. I grab the stick and shift, ready to hit the accelerator but the red mini cooper in front of me doesn't move its ass fast enough. "Come on, come on, come on, you turtle!" The orange light flickers and right after the car passes the line, the red light returns. I throw my hands in the air and cuss, "Dammit! You gotta be kidding me!"

"Calm down, Mama."

I grit my teeth. "We're late, honey."

"I know, but swearing is unnecessary."

Shit. I gulp down a fake lump in my throat, having a taste of my own medicine. She just repeated the very line I said to her every time people cursed in front of us. I sigh. "You're right. Sorry. That was unnecessary."

"So, do you think they are boyfriend and girlfriend now?"

Here we go again. She will not drop the topic until she says so. "I can't answer that question, to be honest, but if they have kissed like what you said, they probably are."

Children nowadays are nothing like what I knew back in the day. I don't know if I wanted to laugh or cry when I learned that kids at Chloe's school were already familiar with the idea of dating and kissing. Some of them even went home with plastic bands wrapping their fingers and proclaimed that they were married! It's just a puppy love thing and it's harmless, but it's enough to give me a headache when my daughter shoots random questions now and then. Especially when I suck at that department.

"Mrs. Donegal kissed the gardener but they are not a couple."

My breath hitches in my throat. "What?"

"Mrs. Donegal kissed Mathew but they are not a couple," Chloe repeats her line, slower with more pressure in her tone as if I'm too dumb to understand her.

"Yeah, I heard that," I reply, shifting my gaze to her in the rear-view mirror. "But how did you even know about this? Did they do that in the open?"

"No." She frowns but then her eyes widen. She lets out a soft gasp as she brings her hand to cover her mouth.

I peer at her. "Chloe Ann Garnett, did you use the telescope to spy on our neighbors?"

My daughter winces before reluctantly lifting her gaze to look back at me, a regret coating her eyes. "It was an accident! I didn't mean to spy. I was just cleaning it up and peeking through it to check if the lenses were clear enough, and...I saw them."