Page 66 of My Cosplay Escape
Comics. I don’t know why, but dividing a piece of paper into panels has been ridiculously entertaining for both the preschoolers and after-school crowd. But I can’t talk about comics with Adam. #DeadGiveAway. “Kandinsky was our last artist of the week.”
“You have an artist of the week?”
Cars honk behind us, and we lurch forward on the freeway once more.
“Parents can and do drop their kids off for ninety minutes every weekday. The Kids Club might be the only preschool-like experience some of these kids have.” I shrug. “I might as well kill time in educational ways.”
Adam gives me some major side-eye. “You’re not fooling me. Go on. Let it out.”
“It shouldn’t matter who a kiddo’s parents are. It’s not the kid’s fault if her parents can’t afford preschool or enrichment classes. Every kid deserves to live in a society where their humanity, intelligence, and potential are validated from the start. Kids should be welcomed everywhere in the community, because they’re part of our communities. Their care should not be seen as an inconvenience or an afterthought, because they aren’t an inconvenience or an afterthought or… a mistake.”
“Feels good, right? To not hold back. To get it all out.”
“Yeah.” An instinct to apologize surfaces, but thesorrydoesn’t materialize. “Thanks for listening.”
He’s comfortable accepting my thanks. “And school? How’s that going?”
“It’s good. There are too many gummy bears in the vending machines, but it’s good.”
“Gummy bears?”
“You’d think that buying a bag and holding it in your hand would ward off the urge for another.”
“No?”
“I don’t want to be made of gummy bears. I’m supposed to eat nuts and fresh produce, lean protein. Definitely not six servings of gummy bears daily.”
“Hang on. I think we better stop for some gummy bears.” Adam makes a big show of checking his mirrors.
“Would you drive?” I say.
He grins, and my heart is dancing Jack Black style. “As long as you tell me more about gummy bears.”
“So I’ve taken to holing up in computer labs where food, i.e. gummy bears, are not allowed. I wish I had a laptop.” I kick my feet out of my green Converse and put them on Adam’s dash.
“No laptop?”
“Daniel broke mine. It’s a long story. Actually, it’s not. He stepped on it and then kicked it. And when I couldn’t get it to work again, he said it was a crummy laptop, and we should just get a desktop. We ended up upgrading his gamer, which he kept when we split.”
It was his, after all.
“You need a computer?”
“Who needs a computer when campus computer labs are everywhere?” I say, picking at the fraying knee of my jeans. I don’t even give Adam a chance to respond before grabbing my soapbox. “Computer labs in theory should be helpful. Right? You pop in, log on. You do your work. Maybe you even print it out at the end. But in practice, computer labs are not helpful.”
“Not even a little?”
“First of all, there is the problem of where to sit.”
“How is choosing where to sit a problem?” Adam reaches for his coffee.
“You have a laptop, don’t you?” I shiver, imagining what it must be like to work in the privacy of one’s own space. Okay, maybe Adam’s space. It’s a really nice apartment. And his couch is so soft, with one of those plush, minky blankets thrown over one arm. I give myself the smallest of shakes and snap back to reality. “No, this is good. We can role-play.”
Adam fumbles his cup, nearly spilling its contents across the dash. “Role-play?”
“Yeah, we do it in Kids Club all the time. It’s really good for social and emotional learning to try on other people’s problems.”
“You have a social and emotional curriculum in addition to an artist of the week? Are parents camped out every day before your shift?”
