You Want Something?

When Grant was little, he spoke primarily in second person even when he wanted something. He did this in both English and Spanish. He would ask Lauren, “You want a cookie?” and he would ask me, “Quieres galleta?” Of course, he was entirely uninterested in whether we wanted cookies—he wanted them.

For years, I wondered where he got this manner of speaking in second person to express his own desires. Last night a long-familiar pattern played out and it suddenly occurred to me.

Like many couples, Lauren and I try to find series to watch together. I’ve seen a ton of Call the Midwife and the entirety of Game of Thrones and so forth while also gently suggesting and being shot down on The Wire, Breaking Bad, and The Sopranos. Likewise, I got left behind on Handmaid’s Tale. Finally, I convinced Lauren to watch three episodes of The Wire, and if she wished to go no further, we could drop it. We’re eight episodes in now, so yay for small wins!

Last night, we watched episode seven, which ended for us around 9:15 pm. This is TV no man’s land—too much time before bed to do nothing and not enough time to finish the next episode (we usually head upstairs around ten).

“What do you want to do?” I asked.

“We can start another,” she said.

We had reached some critical action (Dee sees that Webey and Stink break the Barksdale rules when they want, Bey’s party hookup dies of an overdose) when Lauren said suddenly, “You wanna head up?”

“In a few,” I said. It was about 9:40.

The action moved to Bey and Stink getting ready to roll up on Scar to take his territory. As Stink walks toward Scar, pistol in hand, we hear, “Hey now!” and Stink gets a shotgun blast in the chest. It’s Omar exacting revenge for the deaths of his partners! A street shootout ensues! Bey is wounded! Omar taunts him!

Lauren: “So you wanna go up now?”

Sigh. The episode had about ten minutes left. We headed up.

Hey, babe, tonight you wanna watch The Wire?