I am not a little girl! (Really!) (Scene #214 posted 12/6/23)

[Sarah Penguin]

[diaperboymi]

Wow!!!!  This is an incredible story.   I want th hem as my neighbor next time we move.  Seriously!!!!!  You make them so darn real.  I'm totally hooked on this.

[Alex Bridges]

8 hours ago, diaperboymi said:

Wow!!!!  This is an incredible story.   I want th hem as my neighbor next time we move.  Seriously!!!!!  You make them so darn real.  I'm totally hooked on this.

Thank you!

And me too. Or since I’m really Daphne, I want a Mary to move in with me and keep me on a very short leash. Not literally ... unless she wants to, in which circumstance I will obey because I’m a great rule follower and a very good girl. Really!

[Guilend]

9 hours ago, Alex Bridges said:

Thank you!

And me too. Or since I’m really Daphne, I want a Mary to move in with me and keep me on a very short leash. Not literally ... unless she wants to, in which circumstance I will obey because I’m a great rule follower and a very good girl. Really!

And a Nanna next door to babysit?

[Alex Bridges]

1 hour ago, Guilend said:

And a Nanna next door to babysit?

She’s not Daphne’s babysitter! She’s just a neighbor who sometimes keeps a very close eye on Daphne and helps her out with things. Totally different. Really.

[Guilend]

14 minutes ago, Alex Bridges said:

She’s not Daphne’s babysitter! She’s just a neighbor who sometimes keeps a very close eye on Daphne and helps her out with things. Totally different. Really.

If that’s how you wanted to look at it silly goose 

[Guilend]

I’m just waiting for Nanna to give her a bare bottom spanking?

[Alex Bridges]

2 hours ago, Guilend said:

If that’s how you wanted to look at it silly goose 

I am not a silly goose!

2 hours ago, Guilend said:

I’m just waiting for Nanna to give her a bare bottom spanking?

and ?

[Guilend]

1 hour ago, Alex Bridges said:

and ?

So I can imagine your imaginary Nanna giving you a bare bottom spanking, probably for being a sassy bottom?

[Alex Bridges]

4 hours ago, Guilend said:

So I can imagine your imaginary Nanna giving you a bare bottom spanking, probably for being a sassy bottom?

Hmmph! I'm going to write you into a story one of these days as the little at the daycare who no one wants to play with because he smells like that stuff they spray on old people in nursing homes instead of bathing them. ?

[Guilend]

14 minutes ago, Alex Bridges said:

Hmmph! I'm going to write you into a story one of these days

Yay I get to be in a story

?

[Alex Bridges]

Scene #88

 

Cold? Us too, but not as cold as lots of other places. It was just cold enough for us to go hiking and come back ruddy cheeked and wanting hot food, ideally prepared by someone else, after a hot shower, which we took together to be efficient and to save water and to reach places we can’t reach on our own. Really.

         Mary combed my hair (what’s left of it) and sent me toward the bedroom with a swat to my butt through the towel I was wearing. “Wait for me,” she said. Not that I didn’t want all the sex, but also dinner. It’s like my mom said, at least make ‘em buy you dinner first. Or perhaps mom didn’t say that. Doesn’t sound like her. Maybe it was my older cousin. Family rumor has it she got lots of free dinners, which I still wanna believe means she’s good at couponing because I’m an innocent.

         Anyhoo, Mary emerged from our bathroom in her robe as I observed from flat on my back on the bed, wondering what she wanted me to wait for. And was it wait as in don’t go anywhere or wait as in don’t get dressed or wait as in don’t start nuthin’ without her? Not that I’ve ever been known to start anything without her … anyhoo …

         She chuckled at and said, “You got that look you get from fresh air.”

         “I’m an avid outdoorswoman, within a narrow band of meteorological conditions.” The rest of the time, I’m an avid couchwoman. “And you’re one to talk, telling me to wait for you to do things to me.”

         “Who said anything about doing things to you? I just wanna get you dressed,” she said as she took her robe off and started to get dressed.

         “Could you do that thing again,” I asked.

         “What thing?”

         “That thing where you bend forward to put your foot through your pant leg.” I don’t know why I like that. Just … her body. I like to watch it move. Also, if she did it again, she’d have to get undressed first, and I can work with that.

         “See anything else you like,” she asked.

         “You. But just to be clear, that would be a no on the sex with you putting clothes on?”

         “Well, for now. I gotta eat.” O yeah, I was just thinking about that. I got distracted by Mary. She’s always distracting me with shiny objects, like her. And the time she got a belly button ring and I forgot go to work for a week.

         “What are we gonna order,” I asked.

         “Hold on.” She disappeared for just a second as she put a big flannel shirt on. Grey leggings, flannel shirt. She thinks she dresses very conservatively, but when she does that thing where she pulls the shirt down and takes her hair out of the collar …

         “Mmmm,” I said as I put my head back on the bed.

         “What,” she chuckled.

         “Nothin’.”

I was that good kind of tired when you feel just at ease with the world and content to be with your person and Mary made her are-you-happy face before saying, “Are you happy?” See? Mary and me are on the same wave length. I nodded.

“And now you’re sleepy? First she wants food then she wants sex then she wants food then she wants to fall asleep,” Mary narrated. “Let’s get you dressed.”

“Can I wear this,” I asked and yawned.

“I think we can do better than a wet towel.” She disappeared into the closet, and it was my turn to sigh.

“I know what you’re getting.”

“If you didn’t have a darn good idea by this point, I’d be questioning how smart you are,” she said as she came back out. “Besides, it’s cold.”

“Did they teach you non-sequiturs like that in domme school?”

“Did they teach smartass questions like that in brat school?”

“I’m self-taught.” I could start my own school … and since I’m thinking of going back to school to be a teacher … do they give credit for life experience?

“Now I get to unwrap my present,” Mary said as she loomed over me (sh’es always looming over me, bedeviling me, beguiling and besmirching me) and opened my towel. “Aww, just what I always wanted.”

“What part? I need some specifics.” Because if she wants me to keep going along with the ageplay and diaper thing, I’m gonna need some flattery. Like, all the compliments, please. But I’m only saying please to be polite. It’s not a request.

“I think,” she said pretending to be thinking with her finger on her chin making a thinking face. I can’t even make a thinking face around here anymore without getting accused of peeing my pants. “I like this part best,” she said and bent down to kiss my tummy.

“Heehee. Mary, I’m ticklish.”

“Ya don’t say? What with me having tickled you into submission before, I’d have never guessed.” Sigh … “And look what I got for you.” Groan …

“Where do you even find this stuff,” I asked as she showed me a diaper with farm animals on it.

“You can always pick out your own,” she said as she unfolded it.

“That would be construed as participation, and I refuse to participate in my own mistreatment,” I said as I lifted my hips because reasons and had an existential moment of questioning how it was that I could participate in my own mistreatment as I refused to do exactly that. Stupid brain pointing out the conflicts between my words and actions like anybody even asked it. Anyhoo, “And doesn’t anyone make any that are at least not so cutesy?”

“There’s the medical ones.”

“… Those are ugly … not that it matters because I hate them all.” I took a chance and lifted my head to see her making her skeptical face. Being skeptical at me just because my words don’t match my actions… grumble. “Don’t you be looking at me like that. Shouldn’t you be massaging things into places?”

“Was that you telling me to get back to work,” she said all o so eager to snark at me. “And wouldn’t that make you the boss of this diapering?”

“No. It would not,” I pouted (like a boss).

“So,” she said, “you're just concerned what would happen if you went peepee in your diapee without any diaper rash cream on, is that it,” she said as she applied said cream.

“That’s not it at all. I … hhh! I just …” Don’t squirm. Don’t give her the satisfaction.

“You’re looking a little red there, Daff.”

“Where? Gonna hafta to be a lot more specific.” Because there was rednesses. Multi-redness. Places plural were red.

“Well,” she said, “not in your pretty windburnt cheeks.” Her hands went away, and then I felt her closing that diaper over me. “After such a chilly day, wouldn’t some oatmeal feel good?”

“O don’t even,” I said, holding my hands up so she could help me sit up. I looked down at myself and sighed.

“What pattern would be acceptable to you, then,” Mary asked me.

“Something cool … fractals. Or more grown up, like lewd imagery. Or zoning laws.”

“Good thing you’re not a silly goose, or someone would accuse you of being a silly goose. Up up.”

“Up up?” What’s ‘up up’?

“On your feet.”

“And you can’t just say that because,” I asked.

“Are you grumpy? Because I don’t wanna have to adjust any attitudes tonight.”

“I’m not grumpy. I’m … inquisitive. And really, with the footies,” I inquired.

“Really. And you know what they say about people who are inquisitive?”

“Nope. Never heard it,” I deadpanned. “Did they teach you what people say about people who are inquisitive when you were in domme school?”

“Ah,” she scoffed. “Just for that, ya little smart mouth, the dropseat can stay down all night.” For the record, the dropseat footie pajamas predate the ageplay stuff. She just wanted quick access to my butt once, and lo and behold, one day I received dropseat pajamas as a Tuesday gift, and I beheld. Later on, as in mere minutes later, Mary beheld my butt as I stood in the corner with my red buns hanging out.

When she zipped me up and unbuttoned the flap, she gave me a pat on the butt and sighed. “That sigh was suspiciously wistful,” I said.

“You look pretty,” she said.

“Um, thank you.” I suspected a but.

“But I wouldn’t mind having some of that pretty red hair back to braid.”

I turned around. “It could come back if it would make you happy. I put my arms around her neck.

“It’s you hair, though,” she said.

“You may not have noticed, Mary, but, um, I do a lot of stuff mainly because it makes you happy.” Crinkle.

“Uh-huh. Just me.”

“Yes. What do you want for dinner. I’ll order.”

“Whatever you’re having. I’ll go make us some drinks.”

“Make mine full of alcohol,” I said as I turned and collected another pat on the butt. Butt pats feel good. Everyone should have at least three a day. But diaper pats are … different … somehow.

I went downstairs, being very careful on the stairs lest the soles of these footies fly out from under me and send me to the land of quadriplegia (like, seriously, people put these on their kids!?!), cracked the window behind the couch to let some of that cool air in, turned on the fireplace, flopped onto the sofa, and got out my phone. “Is Italian okay,” I called out to my wife the bartendress.

“Perfect. And order a salad.”

“Tiramisu,” I called out.

“A salad!”

“Tirami-salad,” said I and ordered both along with some pasta. See, the thing about tiramisu is – and this is why I ordered three overpriced pieces – is that as good as it is, it’s even better when I eat it off of Mary’s finger because she, um, tastes yummy. Not that I had any designs on the evening.

“What are we gonna watch,” I asked as I got the remote out and the blanket. You might call it nesting … love nesting. Teehee.

“Something we haven’t seen before,” Mary said as she waltzed into the living room like the queen of the waltzing floor.

“Where’s mine,” I said when I only saw one glass in her hand.

“It’s right here,” her queenship said as she revealed …

“Awww. Marrryyyy!”

“It’s been two whole months since Christmas, and we haven’t used your Christmas present once,” she said with The Royal Smirk plastered to her face. “Don’t you want your baba?”

“No.” She sat down on the couch next to me.

“But I made this just for you.”

“Which I appreciate, but I want it in a glass.”

“What’s wrong with drinking from a bottle?”

“So many things.”

“O, but you don’t mind eating tiramisu off my finger.” So she knew that was going to happen. Wonder how she guessed.

“That’s … different. And in the future.” Seventy-five minutes, according to the app. We should’ve ordered in advance. “I want to be in the present, Mary. All my therapists and all the mindfulness apps have always said I should live in the present.” She laid her head back against the arm of the couch with that smirk still there, like she’d already won. But she hadn’t. No. No winner her.

“And in the present, I really think you should lay your head back right here,” she said, touching her … chest, “and open wide for your baba.”

“… What’s in it?”

“A cosmo.”

“Why?”

         “Because you like cosmos.”

         “No, I mean why?”

         “Is it important?”

         “Sort of … yes.”

         “Well, we’ve talked about it before.”

         True, but, “And it still … I wanna talk more.”

         “Can we talk in the morning after church,” she asked.

         “Promise?”

         “Of course, Daffy.”

         Hmmm. “What will you give me?”

         “For what?”

         “For drinking out of that thing.”

         “Hmmmm.” She made her thinking face again. “Well, how about instead of you eating tiramisu off my finger, I eat it off you?”

         Deal. “Gimme my drink.”

         “Ha! Lay back.” Which I did, but not because I liked it. Because she bribed me with sex. Which is very dignified in ways some might not understand. “One day I’ll even let you drink out of this yourself, but you’re gonna hafta use two hands.”

         “Just for that, I’m gonna need specifics,” I stipulated.

         “Specifics?” I settled back and she stroked my hair.

         “Which parts of me will you be eating tiramisu off of? I need details.”

         “Open up, and I’ll tell you all about it.”

         “Like I’ve never heard that before …” If she was just trying to get me drunk and pliable, she coulda chosen a different nipple … that came out wrong. “It won’t come.” … Also came out wrong.

         “You hafta press it with your tongue before you suck … Why are you blushing? … For someone who hates this so much, you sure are laughing pretty hard … What?”

         “I’ll – ha! Hahaha. Mmmm. I’ll tell you later.”

         “My pretty happy girl.” She gave me a forehead kiss. Sigh…

[Guilend]

God I love these two.

[diaperboymi]

I just live this story.   It's an absolute joy to ready.  These two ar so darn cute ?   Love them ?

 

[Sarah Penguin]

[YourFNF]

Want.... OwO

[Alex Bridges]

Scene #89

 

It was Mary’s idea. Well, in a loose sense that she made an off handed comment that made my ears perk up and I thought to myself, self, you can have some pandemic fun with that.

I would’ve let the idea go, too, except Mary keeps moving my laundry. I do the laundry, I put away the laundry, I go to don some of my laundry, and in one particular drawer I don’t find said laundry that I know I put there. Or I sometimes but not all the time, but when it comes to panties, that’s something you really need all the times you go looking. Not that going commando is the worst thing (I could totally be a commando if the criteria were how often and well one goes commando) but in my effort to not succumb to complete pandemic sloppiness, I’m trying to wear actual clothes. Mary is not helping that effort when she takes panties out of my drawer and replaces them with a diaper. Her pre-pandemic delight in buying me panties from the junior miss section led to having way too many panties, and I don’t know where all those went. I do know that I’m down to maybe three of those and two regular pair, and that’s not enough when it’s laundry day and she decides it would be hilarious to leave me with none to wear.

I don’t even know what she’s trying to accomplish. Unless she’s just trying to make sure I never don’t feel at least a little teased. It’s like bratting in reverse, now that I think on it, and yeah, putting up with a brat is hard. I felt, shall we say, a little competitive, like no one was going to out brat me.

Bratting is an art form. Newbies go rushing in there with the look at me look at me I’m misbehaving look at me approach, and there’s a time and a place for that, but some art needs to build slowly, such as over the course of a laundry cycle, by which I do not mean the machine but the days that typically pass between doing the laundry. That’s why I don’t call this The Great Panty Raid. I call it The Panty Embezzlement.

“Daffy,” Mary called to me (she’s always calling to me) one wonderful afternoon after her post-workout shower, “is there clean laundry in the dryer?”

“No,” I called back, “I did it yesterday.” Another hard part of being a brat and staying true to your art? Not getting so eager that you don’t let things play out in their natural time. So I waited. And waited. And took off my pants and got under a blanket. And waited until Mary came back downstairs.

“Are you sure you got all the laundry,” she asked wearing (I’m guessing because pants) the thong I left her (she’s not a fan; your butt cheeks belong together, she once told me, cuz they’re friends).

“Mhmm.” Yep, I got it all. O, I got it all (evil cackle).

“You couldn’t have,” she said as she headed toward our main floor laundry (woohoo! main floor laundry; gotta get excited about the little things these days).

“I keep our house very well, thank you very much.” Let’s see who can gaslight who better. “If you don’t like the way I do the chores, maybe you should start doing your own laundry.” Yeah, that’s risky and likely to only end one way, but it was worth the risk.

“I didn’t mean it that way. I just … can’t find anything.” I waited. I am a patient huntress (sometimes; almost never, actually, but this time I was feeling like I could play the long game, delayed gratification being the mark of a mature soul and all that, especially when it was only likely to be delayed a few minutes).

I heard the dryer door open again. “Could you come help me look, please?”

I hopped out from under my camouflage (blanket) and headed toward our main floor laundry (woohoo! main floor laundry!) and leaned against the edge of the door frame. “Did you check the hamper,” I asked. “It’s not like I’m hiding your panties.” Because we’re sympatico, I and only I could see the little lightbulb flick on above her head. Shut went the dryer drawer, up came Mary from her (wonderful) bent over posture, and pivot she did on her foot to look me right in the eye.

“Daphne Ann, what did you … Are you wearing my panties?”

Her hands were inspecting my wardrobe before I could utter, “Don’t be ridiculous.”

Smack! Worth it. “Explain yourself, young lady.”

“Possession is ninth tenths of the law, Mary.” That shut her up. “And pbbbbbt!” Yep, I raspberried her. This is gonna hurt. So worth it.

“You (spank) are in (spank) over (spank spank) your head (spank spank spank spank spank).”

“Lemme go! Ow!” She thinks she’s always got the upper hand because she spanks me with her hand, but I got game, too. “I just wanna wear pretty panties like you!” And cue the sad puppy eyes.

Had she accused me of being full of shit, she wouldn’t have been wrong. But if she can start kinky sex games, I can too. You might even say I started the very first one. After all, who was letting her butt get passed around at a spanking party when Mary found it? Little ol’ me.

Her right hand paused in midair while her left kept its gentle grip around my arm, not that I was trying to get away. “Upstairs,” she said, and walked us upstairs, notably without any more spanks to my butt. Perhaps she just didn’t want to damage her panties. Ha! I got spanked on Mary’s panties. Mary’s panties got a spanking. Heeheehee.

“You’re in trouble. Stop smiling,” she ordered me.

“No!”

Into the bedroom we went, and she sat down on the ottoman. She doesn’t sit on the ottoman often. Usually just when she intends to paddle me silly, so I may have bitten off more than I could chew. But always a chance not.

“What is this,” she said, taking my panties (right then is when I decided they’re mine) and snapping the waistband.

“I like them … Mine.” Heeheeheeheehee! She looked quizzical, one might say.

“But … what are you … Explain yourself, young lady.”

“You said that already.” SMACK! And cue the crocodile tears. “I just wanna look pretty and wear panties like yours.”

“But they’re not yours.”

“But all my pretty ones are missing.” End crocodile tears. “And you can have yours back when I get mine back.” Booyah! And then I went yoink like a cartoon getting yoinked over Mary’s knee and collected six or twenty, give or take, rapid fire spanks.

“You do not take things that do not belong to you.”

“Looks who’s talking! OW! You took all my good ones!”

“Your good ones?” SPANK! She left her hand there. “You don’t have any panties, honey.”

“Yes I do, and you’ve been taking them and putting them somewhere.”

“I took my panties, that I bought for you to wear, and left you the ones I want you to wear.”

“But … I bought most of those … I used to have a job, ya know.” I had my own money. It’s all been spent now, but that is not relevant.

“It doesn’t matter who paid for them, sweetie. I own them.”

“You …” I twisted around to give her one heck of a dirty look. “Whatever happened to equal partners?”

“We are equal partners, Daffy, but this is mine,” she said and took a handful of butt. My butt, not hers. “Which means everything goes in it or on it is mine.” She took her hand off my butt, placed it back on the part of me that’s not quite my butt and isn’t quite my front, and said, “That’s just the natural order of things.” Motions … in places. “Besides, you look so silly, like you’re wearing your big sister’s panties.”

“I do not … gggg ... look silly. I … pretty.”

“So silly and pretty. These don’t fit you. They’re much too big for you.”

“But I like them,” I managed to say.

“But you’re just a little girl. You’re not grown up enough to wear … … Daffy?”

 

 

 … Well, that was unexpected …

 

 

 

 

“Daffy, did you just cum in your undies?”

“ … … … … Um, they’re not mine? Woah!” She ninjaed me like a griddle cake. “Hi.” Teehee.

“You’re in for it now,” she said, looking quite amused.

“Uh-huh,” said I. “You, um, you know your hand is still … handing.” Ooh, I made a word … and stuff. She took her hand away. Awwww, consarnit!

“First you go snooping in my drawers.”

“Ha! Guhaha. Haahaaaahaaa (snort). Snooping … (snort) … in your … ha! Hahaha! (snort) … drawers (snort) because the double (snort) mee-meaning (snort) … hmmmmm.”

Mary was trying so hard to not crack up. “Then you. A-ha-hem! Then you take things that don’t belong to you and you …” She was turning purple holding in a belly laugh. “You do a number three in my panties.”

Well, that was fun while it lasted. “A what now?”

“This little underwear rebellion of yours is over, little miss. You will wear what I put in your drawer for you to wear.”

“But … I … Mary, I like my things. I wanna wear … I’m a woman. I like wearing pretty things.”

“I know you’re a woman, and you’re beautiful one, but you don’t decide what goes on that part of you anymore.” She was about to put her hand back on that part of me and appeared to think better of it, possibly because … anyhoo.

“Since when is that a rule?”

“Hmmm, since a while, but officially, now.”

“But … Mary, I wanna …”

“And you can, when I say.”

“And when is that?”

“Often enough to make you happy. How’s that?”

“Vague.”

“Mhmm. You behave better when you’re on your toes. And you won’t be wearing any undies for at least two days. Guess what you’re wearing for the next two days.”

“Guayabera shirt?”

“Nope.”

“Why two days?”

“For your two offenses.”

“What two? I don’t count two.” Pout.

“Fibbing and being an underpants gnome.”

“I am not an underpants gnome!”

“The gnomiest.”

“Marrrry!”

“You just did a number three in your pants, and you know the rule about number one. Do you need a rule about number two, or will you admit you’re just a little underpants gnome who stole panties not appropriate for such a little girl?”

Grrr. And nope never! And grrr. “Gnome,” I meeped.

“And look at what you did when you tried to wear grownup undies,” she said. If I did what she did next, she’d have asked me, do we look with our hands or with our eyes?

“I regret nothing.”

“You know who cums in their pants during a spanking?”

“Eager little beavers whose wives are … d-doing what (gulp) you’re d-doing now?”

“Big girls can hold it for …”

         Barely long enough to move to the bed.

         AND I AM NOT AN UNDERPANTS GNOME! She is! I want my panties back!

         But she can have back the pair I borrowed. I, um, don’t want them anymore. For reasons.

[Bel George]

Waaw, 2 chapters in quick succession. We are spoiled.

[Alex Bridges]

3 hours ago, Bel George said:

Waaw, 2 chapters in quick succession. We are spoiled.

Very spoiled. ?

[YourFNF]

*conflicted subby noises*

[Sarah Penguin]

:)

[Alex Bridges]

Not a chapter but it’s fun!

—————————-

Know what Mary does when she’s stuck on a conference call and bored? Sends me videos. And I swear if she sends me one more of these I will … I will … I’ll … be very cross with her and … dammit.

[diaperboymi]

OMG...Daffy is doomed. ?

[Alex Bridges]

Scene #90

 

         I don’t want to talk about it anymore. I feel wrong, and I feel sad, and there’s nothing I can do about it, so I tore those pages out of my diary and fed them to the recycling because I can’t mourn my grandma in this stupid pandemic. It was a complicated relationship, and I mostly just feel bad for my dad, who doesn’t do bad emotions very well, on top of which he is totally freaked out by mortality. That’s what’s bugging me most, is that I can’t go to him. He needs me, and I can’t go because of this stupid pandemic.

         Mary has been an angel, of course, because she is an angel in addition to being an ninja, sorceress, coyote, queen, and something with computers. If I blink loud enough, she’ll come and ask me if I need anything. I think maybe deep down she wants me to be more upset. Or maybe not that deep down. She thinks I’m holding it in and that that won’t end well, plus she likes to take care of me. But really, like I said, I’m not ready to mourn. Better to wait and do it right all at once than do some now and some when I can go home and see my parents.

         Though I guess I’ve been doing the hedonistic parts of mourning, self-medicating with sugar, sleep, and too much laying around. I know that’s not good, but as I remind myself, it’s a process, and I need to be extra forgiving with myself (I’m good at that). Later on, I can be extra not forgiving with myself (I’m awesome at that), but for now, I got all the way to the end of Netflix and spent forty dollars having a platter of cookies delivered to me. I don’t feel like baking (I know, but don’t be scared; I’m alright; really; I think).

         And the thing is, I didn’t even like her. She was not a kind person. I have some good memories, but also some much uglier ones. None of those ugly memories were of things directed at me. There were some things that happened I’m too young to remember, and my parents stopped letting her watch me and my brother because she was such a mean person.

The ugly stuff I do remember was after that, and it was never directed at me. Maybe it would’ve made these complicated feelings easier if it had been. Instead I have memories, some very recent, of her being cruel to my dad and my grandpa. That’s part of what has me so worried about him. Talk about a person’s ability to screw up their kid for their entire lives. The man is almost seventy, and still he wants her approval. I wish I could see him.

He has my approval. I really want to tell him that, but I know him. He doesn’t do hard emotions well. If I tell him he has my approval, it’ll make my worst ever cryfest look positively Spartan. We’d hafta to scrape him off the floor with a snow shovel. Poor guy.

At least Spring is almost here. That’s got me in sophomore gardening mode. I made a map of my garden in google sheets, and each cell is something I’m planting. Won’t be long now until the bulbs I planted last year come up. Too bad the order you do things in in the garden matters. I wanna go buy a bunch of mulch and spread it just to give me something to do. Yep, no weird mourning feelings there. Really … sigh …

“Daffodil,” Mary called to me as she came from wherever she was.

“I’m in here,” I said from our living room couch. Maybe it’s the pandemic talking, but I’m starting to have weird, tingly feelings for that thing my butt spends so much time on.

“How you feeling,” she asked when she got to me.

“I’m okay. Mom’s going to call me if there’s news.”

“I got a surprise for you,” she said.

“I like surprises. Wuddya get me?” Ding-dong went the doorbell.

“There it is.”

“Is it tacos, by chance,” I asked because reasons (which is tacos; yep, I’m good at the hedonist part of mourning, and we’re just going to all agree to pretend it’s mourning and not a continuation of my stress eating since ever).

“Better.” She looked positively bouncy as she bounced off the sofa. I heard her open our front door, and then the door closed and she poked her head around the corner. “You have a visitor.”

Mary came back into the living room wearing her mask and tossed me my own. I haven’t been around anyone but Mary since before Christmas. No one has been in our home but us since before Christmas. “Mary,” I said, wondering just how out of her mind she was. She’d been twice as paranoid as I was, and I was friggin’ paranoid! I mean, I know she wanted to do something nice for me, but I didn’t want someone in our house. And a little warning woulda been nice so I could at least put on real clothes. “I can’t,” I said. I was a little miffed. Like, shoulda been a joint decision.

“It’s me,” Nana said from our entryway. And there was Nana, also wearing a mask.

“She’s had both her shots and quarantined for ten days,” Mary said. “We wanted to surprise you.”

         I was all bouncy as I bounced off the couch, but I didn’t scurry over to her. I just stood up. I mean, we’d talked on the phone and by text and through the fence. I hadn’t told her about my grandma yet.
         “Hi. Um, is this a good idea,” I asked. “I mean, they don’t know if people who’ve been vaccinated can still be contagious,” I reminded them.

         “I quarantined,” Nana repeated.

         “Well, that was nice of you,” I said. “You didn’t see your kids?” Not that I was investigating. Just that if she went ten days without seeing her kids and grandkids, that was super nice of her.

         “Nope.”

         “How about we all sit down instead of being so awkward,” Mary suggested. Like I’m ever awkward … okay, but Mary isn’t. She drips steely confidence. My awkwardness just sometimes rubs off on her.

         “Did you quarantine just for me,” I asked as I took my rightful place on my new BFF with benefits, a/k/a the sofa.

         “Mhmm. I wanted to see you guys.” She sat next to me. “And I’m hoping you and I can get started on our gardens soon.”

         “I have a plan,” I told her.

         “I can’t wait to see it. How’s everything else? You guys doing okay,” she asked me. Ugh, such a loaded question. I think we shouldn’t ask that questions anymore until 2022 when everyone has been vaccinated.

         “Daffy,” Mary asked me when I didn’t respond right away. And maybe because my lip started trembling. Actually, you know what it was? It was probably the tears spilling out of my eyes.

         “No,” is all I said. And social distancing rules be damned. I hugged Nana.

[WBDaddy]

Jesus, you had to get all personal about it... 

1 hour ago, Alex Bridges said:

And the thing is, I didn’t even like her. She was not a kind person. I have some good memories, but also some much uglier ones.

When I got word that my mother's mother died, I felt nothing.  For exactly this.  Except that the ugly shit was directed at me mostly.  She hated me, and I hated her back.  And we had to live in the same house, so I got to suffer a whole lot for that, because she was "an old woman" - they didn't even try to play the "respect your elders" card, just that I should back off because she probably had dementia or something.