And by a bit more studious, I mean the only reason I ever went to the library was because she was always dragging me along with her like there was a secret party I didn’t know about.
Parker used to claim she brought me because she didn’t want to wander alone around a huge college campus late at night.
Probably true.
But I suspect she also knew that without her interference, I would have defaulted to watching sports rather than putting in the extra effort to bring my work from B quality to the A level.
Because the truth is, I had to work my ass off to get good grades. I didn’t struggle with school or anything, but let’s just say that I’ve been out of college for two years, and hindsight has done nothing to change my perception that college’s real benefits don’t come just from the classroom.
I was more into the extracurriculars. Sports. Beer. Girls.
In other words, I was a regular dude. Still am.
I mean, I work for a sporting goods store, for God’s sake. Technically, I work at the headquarters of a sporting goods store, and I’m on their e-commerce team, so it’s not like I’m handling footballs on a daily basis or anything. But still. Sports.
And as for the women in my postcollege career? Plentiful. Despite everyone warning that it only gets harder to meet girls after college, I can’t say it’s been much of a problem. I just meet them at bars more often than at frat parties. Same game, different arena.
So, basically, not much has changed since college. Sports. Beer. Girls.
Sometimes I wish I cared a little more about bigger things, like work, or my future, the way that Lance and Parker do.
But despite my mom checking my homework every night growing up, and my dad and stepmom paying me for every A I got in high school, the academic bug never really bit me. I did just enough to get to the next step: private high school, respectable college, and then on to a prestigious law school like my older brother. And my sister.
It was the Olsen family path.
And one I didn’t take.
I’d made it as far as applying. Was even accepted to a couple JD programs, although nowhere particularly impressive like the sibs.
And then was hit upside the head with the unpleasant surprise that I had absolutely zero interest in being a lawyer.
Two years later, Dad’s finally getting over it. Mom’s not.
Oh well.
I pay for our lunch as agreed, and back at the house, I keep my fingers crossed that Parker will be in one of her laundry moods, because I’m wearing my last pair of clean boxers.
Even though I’m far from a neat freak, I draw the line at doing underwear repeats. Especially when I’m planning on having female company. And since it’s Saturday night, I definitely plan on having female company.
But Parker is in her room with the door closed, not prancing around the washing machine with her fancy detergent that she keeps hidden somewhere, so I’m on my own with the off-brand detergent.
An hour later, I’m halfway through “folding” some of my T-shirts when Parker comes into the kitchen and shoots an appalled look at my laundry basket. Wordlessly she dumps the entire basket onto the table and begins refolding my shirts.
“Thanks, Mom.” I start to back toward the fridge for a beer, but she makes a buzzing noise and points at the pile. “I’ll help. Not do all of it.”
“Isn’t this, like, a step back in the women’s movement?” I ask, trying a little extra hard to line up some of the edges on my folding now that I have Laundry Nazi watching my every move. “You doing my laundry?”
“Totally. And if you tell anyone, I’ll de-ball you. But I find it kind of soothing. And I love the smell of clean clothes.” She lifts a shirt and sniffs.
I pause. “Well, that’s not disturbing at all. You and your doll Polly stay away from my new dresser. No sniffing the goods inside.”
“Trust me, once these clothes enter the smelly pigsty that is your bedroom, I’m steering clear. But fresh out of the dryer, before you’ve had a chance to sweat all over them? I love the smell of clean cotton.”
“You are such a weirdo,” I say. And then, on a whim, “Hey, Parks, you should come with me tonight.”
Parker doesn’t pause in folding as she meets my eyes. “Could you be more specific? I don’t have my calendar where I keep track of your every move handy.”
“There are a couple of parties happening. Thought I might hit up both, see which one is better.”