"First Impressions"

I approach the door with as much zeal as I can muster. Joey is supposed to be here, but I don’t see him.

“Are you wearing...cargo pants?” I hear whispered behind me.

Whirling around I see Joey, crouched in the shadows. 

“What’s the matter with you?” he hisses, rising slowly to his full five feet six inches. He’s dressed almost entirely in black leather. Or maybe purple. It’s too dark to tell for sure, but I’m pretty sure he’d do black.

“What do you mean?” I ask, looking down at my pants.

“Shock and awe, man. Shock and awe,” he says, shuffling into the moonlight.

“What?” I say, perplexed both by his words and the now-visible red smear on his mouth. It looks like he put on heavy lipstick and then ravenously ate a tomato.

“First impressions, chief. We’re here to impress. To stun. To frighten a little.”

We stare at each other for a second or two. I’m not sure if we’re having a fight or not.

“So what did you do to your face?” I ask. I try not to sound judgmental.

“I made love to a tyranny of razor blades,” he says, too quickly. 

“Yeah,” I say. “No, really.”

“Lipstick and tomato,” he says.

“My lipstick?” I ask.

He shrugs. “You never use it,” he says.

“That’s not the point,” I say.

“Whatever,” he says. “We were talking about your cargo pants.”

“We were?”

“They send the wrong impression,” he says.

“That I’m practical? Interested in utility and comfort, maybe?”

“Yes! You’re totally missing the point. We need him on the defensive.”

“You want me to take them off, maybe?”

“Yes!...No!...um...maybe you could rip them a little.”

“I like these pants. I’m not ripping them.”

He glowers at me, and I take the opportunity to look at my watch.

“We’re already late,” I say.

“I guess that’s something,” Joey mutters.

I open the front door to the school and hold it for him as he clomps up the stairs.

“What’s your teacher’s name?” I ask.

“Mr. Berger,” he says. 

“His first name Ham?” I ask.

“Not funny, Mom,” he says. “Let’s just get this over with.”

Comments

[Miss Erin]

hahaha I love this.

[Marcus Aurelius]

I had this bizarre paradigm shift that cause me almost physical pain at the word "Mom".

Good job.

[Marcus Aurelius]

Apparently, it also caused me to drop my "D"s when forming simple past tense verbs.

Bleargh.

[Katie-wa]

Brilliant. Totally took me by surprise.

[Q]

Already dreading parent/teacher conferences or something?