Daydream Dating

Chapter 3 - Countertops

Song of the chapter - This is Why We Can't Have Nice Things by Taylor Swift

The waiting game started the second Seth said like I care.

Yeah, we'd see about that.

I shrugged my shoulders and walked around him to get to the refrigerator. I ignored the counters covered in grated cheddar cheese which was showing signs of sitting out too long. It had that wet, warm look just as it's starting to melt into the tile. Gross. Grabbing a yogurt, then sneaking past him again for a spoon, I walked out of the kitchen and back to my room.

I knew how that evening would play out. My useless little bro would leave the mess his jerk friends had left in the kitchen. He would either take his nachos to the back room to continue playing his brain sucking video game, not that he has much of a brain to suck, or he would quickly devour said nachos and leave the house in a huff. One of his loser friends would then hide him out until later that night. And if he thought he was gonna hide long enough to escape his judgment, he was in for an eye opener.

As I sat in my room, Little Mix having been replaced by 21 Pilots, I listened for the front door to open, or the rumble of the speakers from the obnoxious video game. I seriously don't understand why the volume has to be so loud for a game. Do you really need to hear that gross squishing noise when the zombie dies or eats someone's brain? Yuck.

After what seemed like five minutes, and actually was EXACTLY five minutes, I heard the rumble, and some squishing. Good. The moron was home and would be home when my parents saw the kitchen in all its cheesy glory.

I only had to wait it out for an hour or so before my mom got home. She would see it, sigh, yell at my brother to clean it, threaten to ground him if he didn't and then just go ahead and clean it herself. No punishment.

If my dad saw it first, different story. The dweeb would be pulling kitchen clean up for a week along with being grounded from any and all brain sucking video games.

Charles and Laura were two very different parents. My mom was totally high strung, usually mad, but hardly ever dished out consequences. My dad was mostly easy going, joked around all the time, but would kick your booty if you didn't do what he said. And that's the parent I was counting on for the win.

Even though I knew mom would get home first, dad would be the one who heard me mention the plethora of dead beats that had graced our home that very afternoon. And I was going to do it in a way the wasn't tattling at all. Just a simple slip of the tongue was all I needed. Then...payback.

It wasn't too much later that I heard it. The automatic garage door opener groaned, the car pulled in, then the motor stopped. A few minutes later the door from the garage to the kitchen opened and closed.

Wait for it...wait for-

"SETH!!"

Ahhh. The sweet sound of sibling trouble. I knew he wouldn't clean it up.

And notice she didn't yell Mallory. She knew I wouldn't do it. I walked to my door and opened it a crack. The walls in our house weren't that thick so I could pretty much hear the whole argument.

"What is this, Seth?"

"I don't know, whatever."

"No, not whatever. This is a huge mess. Don't you know that the grated cheddar cheese starts to melt? Now it's a huge gooey mess that needs to be scrubbed rather than just wiped off."

"Uh."

"Well...?" I knew her hands were on her hips at that point. And she was giving him her death glare.