Thursdays

It was usually on Thursdays that I woke up and felt a little tickle in my throat. A little cough coming on. Lethargy.

Mom would leave the room and turn up the space heater in the bathroom where we got dressed in the mornings, as I’d sniffle and moan and cough louder… watching her from the corner of my eye as she finally came to the decision that I’d be staying home from school that day.

“You’ll have to come with me to the market though.”

I’d nod and say that I thought I could manage that.

Thursdays were marketing days. Like Mondays being cleaning days, Wednesdays were the farmers market days in Santa Monica, Fridays were bread baking days, and so on. 

But I was only “sick” on Thursdays.

Walking in on the right side of the market we’d have to pass by the bakery, where warm donuts and muffins, cupcakes and birthday cakes, sat in colorful rows in the cases. 

By then it would be mid morning and I’d rested, watched reruns of Betwitched and The Love Boat, and eaten scrambled eggs, cinnamon toast, finished with fresh squeezed orange juice from the yesterday’s farmer’s market in Santa Monica.

I’d make myself perk up just enough, to seem well enough to push the cart for and follow her around as she checked items off her list. Her menu for the week became apparent via the ingredients piled high in our cart. 

I’d mention that I was a little bit hungry in the dairy aisle….and then again, as we neared the checkout, in direct sight of the bakery counter.

Mom would look over at the bakery counter, look at me, and then like clockwork, reach in her purse with a half proud smile, knowing her prayers had worked and I had been healed. Now, my mom was NOT easily manipulated, and I still wonder if she knew I was faking sick on Thursdays so I could go to the grocery store and get a donut.

Yet, she’d still scrounge for a dollar fifty and motion me away as she put the groceries on the belt, to get myself the jelly filled sugar coated donut I had waited for all week.