Spit up and the Suburbs

Back on tree-lined Bonita Lane, having collected her kids, Alyssa pulled into the Keadons’ driveway and quickly hopped out of her crumb and toy-laden Cadillac to check the mail. Who should be getting out of her blue minivan across the street, but Stephanie Bush. 

“Well, that was aggressive,” Alyssa quietly lobbed over the narrow, shady street. Alyssa saw instantly that she had Steph’s attention. 

“Good for you that you didn’t let it bother you,” Alyssa continued, as Stuart and Belle hauled their backpacks inside the Bushes’ recently power washed stucco mini-manse. What, were violin lessons canceled? In any case, Alyssa, her young sons Jude and Luke suction-cupped to each of her legs, inched a little closer to Steph, but safely clear of the parents whizzing by in golf carts with their kids and backpacks in tow. Look out! A kid on an e-bike staring at his phone nearly wiped out as he narrowly avoided a run-in with the Keadons’ mailbox.

“Does she always do that?” Alyssa then asked her perpetually even-tempered neighbor, who was clad in the very un-PMS Club outfit of running shorts and a zip-up jacket. 

Steph looked up and down the street, her low-maintenance ponytail swinging to and fro from underneath her impressively logo-free baseball cap, as if she suspected that mom spies could be anywhere—behind that tree! Or, under that car!

“Lanie is late a lot of the time,” Steph admitted with a barely-discernible shrug, shutting her creaky mailbox, and proceeding to slide the door of the minivan shut in one easy motion. But was that a tiny sigh Alyssa heard her oh-so-calm neighbor emit? And, did Alyssa detect the slightest hint of defeat from Steph? She couldn’t be sure. Steph could just be breathing heavier given the humid afternoon air.

“I figure that if she’s in that much of a rush…” Steph’s voice trailed off and Alyssa saw her chance. 

“Well, you don’t deserve that,” Alyssa reassured her neighbor. “We’re all there for the same reason…” She waited to see if Steph took the bait and agreed that the all-powerful Lanie was a garbage person after all.

Instead, Steph assured Alyssa, “It’s no big deal.” And then, she started to retreat back toward the house as if afraid to continue the conversation. Before Alyssa could utter another word, Steph had escaped into her garage with a hasty, “See ya,” and was shutting the door. It landed on the concrete with a thud of finality.

Not discouraged quite yet, Alyssa simply reasoned she would have to ratchet things up a bit. “Come on boys. Who wants an ice pop?” she enticed her sons, and then, they disappeared into their own home, where Alyssa’s plan to teach the PMS Club ladies a little lesson on civility took more shape.