The Cal-Oh-Rie Boss

I remember feeling as a child waiting to grow up and see what I will do.  (I knew it was great fun being a kid, but I was curious about the future).   Naturally,  I asked the daughter what she thought about life as an adult. She said that our lives were cool. Among other things that make our lives cool, was a point mentioning that we got to boss our kids around. That was news to me. I felt like the bossee more than the boss so often.

While having this riveting conversation, we walked past a pastry shop that sported all things cream and sugar in those sparkling windows and the daughter wondered whether we may stop in for a snack. Really, all that cream and sugar could not bode well for the body. So, I used my skills of persuasion and said we want to go for something healthy and moved towards a Starbucks (I know! But it was the only one in sight that had a semblance of a trail mix pack in there) instead. 

I walked in to the coffee store in my usual state, you know? Calm and collected. The moment I walked in, I knew I was fighting a losing battle. There, gleaming from the confectionary box were those blasted cake pops looking like dynamite balloons. I was trying to convince the daughter not to go for those, but everybody knows by now that she only wanted cake pops. I was wondering whether to belt out my healthy-eating-talk or not, and decided against it. We had stepped out for a Holiday afternoon after all. I caught the billing clerk’s eye and she saw my moment of resignation and was there a smirk to her face? Or was she simply smiling at me? I wasn’t sure, and I wanted to be the mom-in-charge and the cool mom all at once to impress Lydia (I think that’s what her name tag said, but it could have been Lysha)

So, I tried again with the daughter, “This is nothing but sugar, do you want to try something a bit more healthy?”

The daughter looks at me and says, “Amma. You said to look for cal-oh-ries too right? See all the things with healthy stuff in them like this pumpkin slice or this apple slice all have more than 400 cal-oh-ries, but the cake pop is only 150 cal-oh-ries. So, it may be all sugar, but it is less sugar.”

There was no point: I gave in and slumped my shoulders a bit.

Then I remembered that I recently saw an article in which the speaker asks us to ooze confidence and fresh from the reading, I oozed. I acted like the totally-in-control-of-daughters-diet  mom and said “Hi. I would like a cake pop please.”

“Good job Amma. Maybe you should get yourself something healthy too.” said the daughter smiling in that sly fashion.

So I bought two cake-pops.

“Is that all?” Lydia (or Lysha or Lyma) asks.

“Yes.” I said meekly and then ‘Yes!”, a little stronger.

We stepped out smartly before any more judgments could be passed by Ly-dash, and picked up the threads of the conversation where we’d left off.

“Like I was saying, it must be totally cool to boss your kids around and do whatever you like. Like you just walked into Starbucks now instead of that pastry shop.” said the daughter.

Having exhausted my conversational brilliance, I agreed and bit into my cake pop like an obedient mother.