In Writ & Lust (In Progress)

5 Whip-er, Will-her

Lennon dumped a third bag of popped microwave popcorn in a large bowl. Tossing the bag in the garbage, she grabbed the bowl and a small stack of red and white plastic containers that looked like old fashioned theater popcorn bags and walked to the family room.

When her husband had designed the house and suggested a second living room for just the family she felt it unnecessary and ridiculously pompous to have two living rooms. But, he insisted, declaring the need once they had children, which was definitely in the plans. She succumbed and once her boys were old enough to wrestle during commercial breaks, before they were sent to bed, when they got home from school, or just about any time they deemed convenient wrestling time, she was happy Eric had persisted.

“Popcorn!” She announced as she entered the room.

“Yay!” all five kids exclaimed in unison, running towards her.

“Everyone gets a popcorn cup.” She stated as she started handing them out. Once everyone had one, she used her hand to scoop popcorn into them until they were all full.

Tonight was supposed to be date night; unfortunately, at the last minute a possible investor for a large building project Eric and the company were working on had called with proposition to meet that night. Eric had called her, apologizing, asking if she minded. She knew if she was the type of woman to complain he wouldn’t have made the appointment; however, this was their life, their livelihood. There would be future date nights, but not another opportunity for this investor since he would be leaving town the next morning with no plans of returning for at least a month.

So, she called Gracie, offering her and her husband their restaurant reservations while she watched their three children. Since the reservations were for early evening she suggested they enjoy themselves all night while the kids stayed over. Gracie was more than happy to help out and she and her husband were ready in record time, dropping their two boys and daughter off in less than an hour and a half.

Now she and all five children were gathered in the family room, munching on popcorn, enjoying a movie on Nickelodeon.

Nearly three hours later the boys had managed several wrestling matches, one which resulted in one of her boys hitting his head off the bottom of the couch; but they were used to each other and recovery was swift. Another match had one of Gracie’s boys getting his fingers stomped on, but since it wasn’t his brother inflicting the pain it took a little longer for him to get over his assaulted fingers, and ultimately, his bruised ego. The last match Gracie’s daughter had jumped on top of the pile of boys, landing directly on one of their backs who quickly bucked her off. She had landed on her bum on the floor and she took it personally, immediately crying uncontrollably.

Lennon threatened them with separation without TV for the rest of the night as she tried to console Athena. She wasn’t sure if it was the threat, the fact that they’d finally worn themselves down, or the combination of the two; but by 11:30 they were finally calm and slowly they drifted off to sleep one by one until they were finally all in dreamland by midnight.

Athena was still curled up on her lap, hugging her stuffed frog tightly, her head nestled against Lennon’s chest.

Lennon stroked Athena’s hair, letting her mind wander to her writing project. Or, rather, the need to start her writing project. In the days since the group’s first meeting she had given it a lot of thought but still wasn’t sure what to do. Poetry seemed the quickest but not necessarily the easiest option. She hadn’t a clue where to even begin to write a book and a short story didn’t seem any less daunting.

She visited the library for inspiration and did find several books that were basically personal essays by authors like David Sadaris and Sarah Vowell but feared she didn’t have the narrative knack to make her life seem as interesting as they had.