Driving Doctor Mayhem

[8] Co-Parenting

"Your daughter has lost her-her marbles, Miss Banks!" Cricket shouted, haphazardly dragging me through my front door.

"Ow, that was the door frame, buddy."

We stumbled in to find my mother still dressed and done up but snuggled under a pink blanket on the couch. The cube TV crackled with static as a crowd cheered for some vocalist with some sob story on some sort of a singing competition.

She didn't even sit up from where she was slumped into the cushion, because she was more than used Cricket's antics. Only her eyes moved to us. "Oh, what now?"

"Did you hear she got a job?"

She pursed her hot pink lips. "I don't know how to respond to that without coming off snide, sweetheart."

"See!" I scoffed, pulling my wrist away, which wasn't very hard because Cricket was many things, but muscular was not one of them. "See! She knows!"

"But!" he continued, waggling his finger like a stern parent, "Did she tell you who she's working for?"

Ma shook her head.

"Some lunatic who calls himself Doctor Mayhem. Says, uh, says he's some sort of super villain!"

She shrugged, still not standing. "Work's work. Is the pay good?"

Cricket rolled his eyes. "Yeah, okay. Is the pay good--oh, he's just plotting world domination, but the pay is, uh, really good, N-B-D. I swear, I am the only sane person in this unit!"

I wrinkled my nose, "Blech, don't use abbreviations in real life. It's shameful."

"Because that's what matters!"

"It matters a little," my mother added.

"And I told you, Cricket, he's not planning world domination. He's sort of old-ish; I don't think he has the stamina."

After staring at both of us stony-faced for a couple of seconds too long, Cricket chuckled incredulously, balled up his fists and stalked out of the apartment, muttering under his breath.

"See you tomorrow, Cricket!" I called after him.

"It was a joy co-parenting with you, as always," Ma said.

The two of us exchanged a smile and shrugged. We both loved Cricket, and we knew his heart was always in the right place, but that alone couldn't make us listen to him.

I'd un-ducktaped him from a tree every single Homecoming for four years, and un-TP-ed his yard every Halloween before that, and I can say with absolute certainty that no one in the town of Jiminyville--except maybe elderly ladies with butterscotch addictions--took Cricket Riddley seriously.

And I sort of did, but not even elderly ladies with butterscotch addictions took me seriously.