Out of Body

I put on my usual chipper morning face.
The bearded cowboy on the tv says “Yew don’t recall ‘im? Or yew don’t wanna recall ‘im?”
Jeff has been up since whenever, as he does not have a circadian rhythm.
“What you watching?” I say. I’m friendly. It’s supposed to show.
“Um, actually it’s not a movie, it’s Gunsmoke,” says Jeff.
I didn’t ask if it was a movie.
“Can you tell I’m trying to be extra friendly to help you feel good?” I ask. In a friendly way.
“Oh,” says Jeff. “Ok.” He shuffles upstairs for today’s 6:15 am bedtime. Gunsmoke was evidently not all that compelling.
Becca and Olivia have actually woken to their alarms. Olivia makes only one reference to wanting to punch somebody, so I take her stress level to be low today. Becca breezes through, makes some toast and jam, has it all together. Her hair is floofed. She is Marilyn among the Munsters, with one exception: Sometimes she gets embarrassed by us.
Gabe, at my urging, staggers into the shower for a nap. After I bang on the door 5 or 6 times and say “wash your hair,” he stumbles out and scarfs some Honey Bunches of Oats. Then he squishes the dog into the corner of the couch. He is trying to occupy the same cubic footage as the dog. He is trying to defy the laws of physics and the dog knows it.
“I had an out of body experience in math yesterday,” says Gabe. Yesterday was the first day of school. It’s his last year in this school. Next year--high school. Of some sort. I’m not sure I want to be hearing about out of body experiences in math class.
“Do you think you could save out of body experiences for lunch or recess?” I ask. I’m silly. He tells me, and I already knew this, that you can’t control out of body experiences.