Today I have a stoop sale and I am furious when my mom tells me there’s coffee on the counter or when I see the white paper bag of bagels my dad bought. These are growing pains, there is a name for them. My exact nuances exist in most people’s relationships with their parents but right now, I am trying to sell my clothes and my mom will not get out of my way. I buy my own coffee, buy peaches and tomatoes, my parents tell me they were too expensive and that you can get the same at the vegetable store. They don’t know anything about pesticides and neither do I until I read headline that said 80% of Americans have cancer carrying weedkillers in their urine. I am selling my clothes and my mom begs me to keep some things, offering to pay me. She later says she’s giving me a dollar, girlishly runs away with a shirt. I hate when she does stuff like that, taunting the cowering child inside her. I shouldn’t hate it, I should invite her to sit on my stoop with me and count my coins.
Some girls are leaving their Airbnb, bags of bagels on the tips of their fingers and they sort through clothes to smush into their carry on suitcases. My aunt looks at me as they jabber over my baby tees and vintage blouses, ‘they’ll give you a lot of money’ , I nod and look back at the girls. She’s probably right, but I hate a high baller, so I remain humble in my prices. They grab my shorts, hold them up against their waist, ‘These would definitely be too big, right?’, they pass them around, each pinning them back to their figures, I study their midriffs. They decide socratically after three minutes of referring to the mammoth size of my shorts from when I was a freshman and the thinnest I’ve ever been, that the shorts, falling perfectly just below their needle point belly buttons, are indeed, too big. I stare at them, eyes glossed over and voice soft; in attempt to illicit my mid-sized yet intellectual scorn with a shield of apathy, take their money and watch them march down my street.