Heather Anne

I commuted home yesterday in complete, brooding silence. (I would have driven home listening to James Blunt or something equally despondent, but my iPod battery was dead –– which, of course, vexed me even further.)

There has been a lot of shouting in my general direction this week. If I deserved to be yelled at, I’d own it. (Like when I was fifteen and my mom made me get my learner’s licensed ass out of the driver’s seat of the car so she could frog-march me inside my house and wallop me. All my teenage beatings were warranted, and I have no problem telling you that.) But this week’s shouting? Not my fault.

On the way home I pondered what kind of junk food I should use to self-medicate, because that’s what I do. When I am forlorn and underappreciated I eat bags and bags of Doritos. Last night I decided on Swedish Fish, so I whipped into the Walgreen’s near my house, parked angry and crooked in the parking lot, and walked all not-much-of-a-house-for-not-much-of-a-donkey into the store.

As soon as the automatic sliding doors opened, a four-year-old, ginger-haired, bespectacled little boy took one look at me, and shouted, “Awesome!”

I turned around, but there was no one behind me.

“No, you!” the little boy said. “Awesome! Awesome Superman shirt!”

I stepped in the door, and he walked right up to me, holding up his little hand. I grinned and gave him a high five.

“I -- I have a Batman shirt, too,” I told him.

He held up two hands for the double five.

His mom called him away and apologized. “I’m sorry, “she said. “He loves superheroes.”

“Oh, no, it’s cool,” I said. “I like superheroes, too.”

On the way home my cell phone rang; it was a shouter. I shook my head, sent it straight to voicemail, and popped a Swedish Fish in my mouth. You know why? Because I…am…awesome.

The Potter-Weasley-hybrid kid told me so.