Song for a Crappy Tuesday

It's been a long day. Nearing the end, your muscles begin to ache and a weariness invites you to sit in a squeaky wooden rocking chair.  Whenever were you this tired?  Is it that you're getting old?  

Nah.  Not yet.  

The chair grouses in time beneath you as you rock and you gaze into the living room.

Surrounded by about six wooden undone puzzles is June's Third Tuesday.  His dark hair is matted to his oily little forehead.  He glares at you, the wooden outline of a cow clutched in his stubby hand.  

In a faint, near whisper you say,  "And where does the cow go? There...on the puzzle...."  Your finger sort of points, though your hand never leaves your knee.

He sputters out half a lung of air.  His eyes narrow, threatening to cry.

"No, no, swee- look...just there..."

This kid doesn't like new babysitters.  It has been a tense effort all day to keep him from wailing. And there was the interlude in which you learned his mother had left her cell phone on the kitchen counter....by "accident."

Right.

Now, the day draws to a close.  The two of you are shivering from exhaustion. He might just whip that wooden puzzle piece right at you.  

"It goes in the - the cow thing...there..."

He looks down, and with a quivering hand puts the puzzle piece on the pig shape.  When it doesn't fit he pounds it with ever increasing force.

You sigh.  "Yes...whatever..."

God knows when his mom will return.