Tea, Family.

We have this family ritual called "teatime" or "having tea." It happens anytime after dinner, but generally later at night, at 9 or 10 perhaps. We don't all drink tea, but it started out that way and the name stuck. My older sisters drink tea with whipped cream, but my dad eats raisins and unsalted almonds, my brothers eat either cookies or cereal, and I generally eat fruit. We just kind of hang out and talk. My mother pops in sometimes, but she is generally doing clothes while she watches a cable news program. I'm not exactly sure why, but I got the urge to attempt capturing a small snapshot of tonight's teatime. So here goes nothing.

“Hey Rocko,” (my brother’s nickname for our sister - it’s from Rocky) “who was the brilliant person who left all the recyclables outside the back door? The dog tore up all these milk cartons and left them in shreds across the whole yard!”
“I’m sorry Danny, it was me - you cleaned it up?” she asked.
“Yep - did I mention there were tons of little pieces all over the yard? It was very, very hard work.” he told her in a playfully mistreated, indignant kind of voice.
“I’m sure it was.” she said good-humoredly. “So Esther, you’re almost finished with school for this semester? What are you going to do for the summer?”
“Yo Es, you should get a job at Dunkin’ Donuts.” Dan commented.
“Um, why would I want to do that?”
“ ‘Cuz you could get me free donuts then. Or maybe McDonalds - yeah that would be better.”
“I think a restaurant like Applebees would be more fun than that.”

Le interrupted, “You know what, you’d be great working at Starbucks, Es. You fit right in with all the fruity intellectuals.”
“Gee thanks Leesh,” I said sarcastically. And I’m thinking, hey, look whose talking - I’m a science major, but you took tons of social classes and became a lawyer. Who’s calling who the fruity intellectual? But her description was dead right, as usual. “Actually,” in a more serious tone, “I think I’m probably more of of a fake wannabe fruity intellectual.”
“No, you’re real, you pretty much define it, you’re it sweetie.”
“Wow, that says a lot about how sad fruity intellectuals really are if I define them - I’m not sure who’s getting the worse insult - me or them.”
Whatever.

Le turned to Steve. “So I heard you got a 1250 on your most recent practice SAT.”
I jumped in. “What?!! You didn’t tell me that! What did you get on the math section?” I had been working with my brother on the math section, so I was naturally curious.
“I got a 680.”
I yelled, “Dude that’s awesome!! I can’t believe it! That’s so much higher than last time, and that’s higher than what I got on any of the practice and real SATs.”
“Rocko” asked, “That was after Esther started helping you with the math, right?”
“Steve, you and Esther are definitely studying SATs this Saturday.” Dad interjected in a no-nonsense voice. I could tell he was happy that Steve had applied himself and gotten a good score.
“So this really motivates you to keep studying, doesn’t it?” I asked Steve.
“Yeah” he replied with a suppressed smile of satisfaction.

Lately I have been attempting to convince my brother to become a surgeon. He wants to be an electrician and a small business owner, without attending college.
“But you’d make such a good surgeon, Steve. You do intricate cabinetry and detailed things so well - you made our front door for crying out loud. And you have the brains to go to medical school,” I tell him all the time.
“No, that’s not me, I don’t like school and I’m not very good at it anyway. Dan’s the one to be a doctor. And I can’t stand blood - it makes me sick.” He replies.
Oh well. It was worth a try. He really would make a brilliant business man. The unbelievable discounts on products he wheedles Apple and Verizon (and plenty of other companies) salesmen into giving him never cease to floor me.

"Okay, g'night ya'll, I'm going to go write a paper." I left. And came here.