Breakfast with the Cooks.

            One sunny morning at the Cook's residence…

“Don’t just sit there. You’re turtling up in that puny shell again. You always do that, leave all of our relationship problems on that stupid table, unspoken, untouched, unresolved,” said Emilia Cook.

“What’s wrong with that?” said Roger Cook, putting his red flip flops on her table, leaning back in his chair and popping a cheerio in his mouth. He wore a wife beater and plaid pajama pants. “By the way, we need milk.”

“Because they’ll never go away, we’ll never be happy, and they’ll come right back to eat us. Besides, it’s like stopping the movie right in the middle. It’s annoying.”

“You’re still upset about that aren’t you? It was just a movie. Anyway, who cares about the ending? I mean who even cares about the problems? I like you angry.”

“Ughh," she dug her nails into her hair. She slammed her hands to her side. She dug her nails into her palms. Then, while continuing to pace around in her bunny slippers, jabbing her finger at him, she said: "You know what? You’re a coward, that's what you are. You just don’t want to face the fact that we have problems here. You’re too chicken to deal with them. All you want is what's happening right in front of you.”

“Sticks and stones love,” quoted Roger. Crunch went a Cheerio.

“Look it! You’re dropping cheerios all over my carpet! The maid just cleaned! What about the party!! What're are the Johnsons gonna say when their little baby starts eating cheerios off the floor? Yippee!! Free floor infested breakfeast? What? Stop staring at me like that!! It's your fault. Do this, do that, Stop it, Stop that. clean this, clean that. I'm always the bad guy around here. What am I!? The broken doll of Stalin?! The broken record!? Just listen every now and then. Is that so much to ask?!! A broken record, I tell you. Uggh This all sounds so frequin' cliche!! I can't take it!!"
"One minute, 47 seconds. Getting better," he said, looking up from his watch. 
 "Stop it!!! I'm tired of all your...your..your... Uggh!!”

“I’m surprised you haven’t left yet,” said Roger, smiling.

“It’s my house!!!!” said Emila. She stormed off, tripped over her bunny slippers, and caught herself on the door handle. There she stood up and paused. With her back to him, her body settled into place as she put a hand over her mouth, breathing, thinking.
"You know you're terrible at being angry. Needs more cussing." Crunch. Roger leaned forward and really got into it with big hand gestures. "And you're supposed to storm out.You know leave me in peace? Storming out should be more of like a really fast brisk walk, like your trying to get somewhere besides the floor. All the way out, like you're walking down a catwalk. And slam the door real hard. As hard you can. Just like that. Come on, your turn. Try it. You've got this. Just like you ran over that cute little squirrel, remember? What did you name him?" He couldn't help hiding his smile now.
Long after he finished, she stood still and thought, fighting back tears. Then a smirk crept up from beneath her ring laden fingers. She turned back and said, “I’ll call your Mother.”

“Sure go ahead.”

She smiled, noticing how the cheerios paused for a moment, before he plopped them in his mouth,

“You know. The reason it’s annoying when you stop in the middle of a movie is that you never see the results. But you probably don’t care about whats gonna happen do you?”

            “You and your movie metaphors.” he said. Crunch. She smiled. She turned and left the room, muttering to herself, "Perhaps you do care...You know. By talking about this script we're creating for ourselves, I'm making it really meta arn't I. Or am I making things up again?"  

             She picked up the lime colored landline.

             Ring. Ring. 

"Hi. Mrs. Cook? Yes. No. Yes. Hey um...Yeah, it was really great. Listen. No. That's tonight. Hey, um...Yeah, I'm excited about it too. No, we're not ready yet. Almost though. Hey listen, I'm calling about Roger..."

The Unknown.

Every time we step into the starless sky of the unknown we are forced to define ourselves, our reality. That definition, that belief is the water that turns sand into stone, building a wall against the oncoming storms of life.

A New Nucleus

Facebook, Twitter,  HarryPotter, Recess, The Last Airbender, The Office, Big Bang, How I met your Mother, Friends. The mirror of the media shows us for who we really are. Forget the 1950’s familial nucleus, our generation has found something better. I mean why fight for something as hard as a family when all you have to do is pick up the phone? Forget “True Love.” It’s fleeting, it’s hard, it’s painful, and it sucks. But friendship. Now friendship is easy. Just hook in, press the speed dial, twitter up. Besides: what better way to enjoy this ever changing globe flattening, diverse information flux, then with a friend by our side?

That’s not to say we don’t want true love. Deep inside, everyone in our generation seeks “true love” in some form or another, but it seems superfluous in light of the falling sky. It becomes a luxury when everyone is going in dizzying directions. Not even marriage can bind us together anymore and at the end of every break up there is always the impossible wish of “Let’s just be friends.” Then we go home to where another friend waits with a bucket of ice cream.

Friendship: the perfect system for a single parent home. We can live our own lives, and come home and visit the local, bar, library, coffee ship, and just chill. With friends we can go save the world on our own, or even better, do it together. We can cross nations and do all manner of marvelous things and we’ll always have someone there to share it with.  They are there when we fight, when we love, when we cry, when we laugh, when we die. Forget family, the nucleus of our generation is friendship.