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Books People Send Me, Installment Seven

Heather B. Armstrong | November 20, 2017

Yesterday morning the kids took mercy on me and didn’t stomp around this tiny house before 7AM, and when it was all said and done I slept for 14 straight hours. I have my theories as to why my body needed that kind of break from reality—PIANO CONCERTO FEDERATION IS FINALLY OVER AND THAT SHIT IS HARD ON DOTING MOTHERS–and by the time I walked into the kitchen Leta was hangry. HANG GREE. There was no “good morning” or “hello” or “thank you for the sacrifices you make on an hourly basis so that I might live a fulfilling life” or even a goddamn “sup”. I don’t even remember the first thing she said only that smoke poured out of her ears and nostrils as she growled it at me.

“She’s been waiting for you to wake up so that we can eat,” Marlo translated as she is fluent in Awful and Ungrateful Offspring.

I normally make the girls cinnamon rolls on the weekend mornings, but I didn’t understand why neither of them had grabbed a snack or perhaps started gnawing on their own arms. There were options, and I told both of them that they’d have to wait another 20 minutes or so for the oven to warm up plus cooking time. In the meantime, why not gnaw on your own arm?

Leta apologized for being so grumpy and walked over to the kitchen to fix herself a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios HASTAG NOT SPONSORED. Wait, that’s not accurate. Because it wasn’t just one bowl. It was four bowls. One, two, three, FOUR bowls of cereal. And when the cinnamon rolls had finishing baking, she ate three of those. Do you know what it feels like to not only find a food that your picky child will eat but also witness her eating gobs and gobs of said food?

Actually. That’s too understated. This is more accurate.

Four bowls of Honey Nut Cheerios is common with that kid, and so every time I am at the grocery store—no matter why I am there—I grab a couple of boxes. I was telling this to a friend yesterday who scratched his head so hard that I could hear it through the phone. “Are you sitting down? Because what I’m about to tell you is going to blow your mind,” he said. “There’s this place called Costco.”

OH SHUT UP. Yes, I know. I live less than a mile from the biggest one in the world, remember? And last time I was there I realized, oh shit. I don’t have room in my house for a hundred rolls of toilet paper. I literally do not have room for bulk cereal in my house. Half of the countertop space in my kitchen is already occupied by food because I don’t even have a pantry. The other half is occupied by glasses full of my privileged white woman tears.

The point being… y’all. This isn’t even half of the number of books people have sent me since the last installment. You can’t see the floor in my office because it’s just stacks and stacks of books. I am donating the majority of them, but until then I have nowhere to put them. The floor of my office was a brilliant decision, though, because without fail every morning I walk in with my cup of coffee, trip over a stack that I tripped over the previous morning and have yet to re-stack, and am all WHY PEOPLE GOTTA BE READING WORDS.