Me: “Tweak, have you ever been sad?”

Some days are better than others. This has not been one of them.

Tweak: “Sad? Like when the center of my food bowl is empty?”

Me: “No, you can fix that if you have a friend. Think of something worse.”

Tweak: “Starving Ethiopian children collapsed on the desert floor like unhinged marionettes while vultures file their nails?”

Tweak taps a cotton-ball hand into the center of her bowl in case I missed the implication.

Me: “Maybe not that sad.”

I shuffle the pasta around on my plate, make a hole in the middle.

Tweak: “Starving Ethiopian children eating my food?”

Me: “Well, now you’re just being silly.”

Tweak: “Maybe silly is a cure for sad.”

Me: “Probably not a cure, but it is a fine distraction.”

Tweak: “What’s the difference?”

Me: “Good point. Pull my finger.”

Tweak: “Oh, god. Not the leper jokes.”

Me: “Never play Rock, Paper, Scissors with a leper. But if you do, always pick paper.”

Tweak: “That doesn’t even make sense.”

Me: “Sure it does. Lepers can only make ‘rock.’ See, their hands are rotted and the fingers are falling off and…”

Tweak: “No wonder you’re sad.”

Me: “You hungry?”

Tweak: “Not anymore.”

 

8 July 2014, “Tolerating Tweak”