So That Happened

Here's a scene that just went down two minutes ago: I was upstairs at my computer and I heard my mom say to my dad, "Except for Michael's Netflix movie, Livvy got all the mail." I never get mail, so I bounded down the stairs to where my mom had made a little pile of three envelopes on the bottom step. "It's nothing exciting," she said. She may as well have clawed out my heart and squeezed it through a garlic press. 

I looked at the stack. Wells Fargo, Chase, NPR. NPR? I raced upstairs and tore open the envelope. A few weeks ago I donated some money to the pledge drive and the letter was just a thank-you. I was about to toss it in the recycling when I felt a thicker, glossy page inside the folded paper. A sticker! My very own NPR sticker! "Mom!" I shouted, and darted down the stairs. (I swear one of these days I'm going to fall to my death.) "Mom! Guess what I got! Guess what I got!" It would not be an overstatement to say that I was more excited that moment than a small child on Christmas morning. "What?" my mom asked, presumably expecting something that a normal person would find exciting, like winning the lotto. "An NPR sticker!" I exclaimed, and held it up in front of my face so she could admire it and congratulate me on obtaining such a fine item.

She smiled. In a brief moment of self-realization, my face fell. "Oh my god." I said, slumping against the door frame. "I'm a freak." Usually this would be the time when my mom would say something comforting like, "But it's good to be informed of the news!" or "No you're not, honey. You're wonderful." This time she gave me one look, walked past me into the living room, and said to my dad, "Our daughter is a freak."

Stupid NPR sticker.

(But where should I put it?!)

UPDATE: I was just blow-drying my hair (which I never do because without a diffuser it turns all my curls into frizz) and I noticed a diffuser in the drawer. "Mom!" I shouted, "how come you never told me you had a diffuser?" "Why would I?" she responded from the kitchen. "I don't even know what a diffuser is!" I explained to her that it means I can blow-dry my hair instead of walking to the bus in sub-freezing temperatures with wet hair. She and I have decided to create a scale of my excitement, with NPR sticker at Maximum Excitement, and Diffuser just a half-step below it.