As I try to wake up so I can drive Max to his trumpet lesson at 8:30 on a Sunday morning….

Scott: (inarticulate with slow moving lips, voice muffled by bed pillows where most of his head is burrowed deeply) Whatever you do, don’t talk.

Cassie: (yawning and wobbly on my feet) What? To Max? In the car?

Scott: Yes. His chemicals are still calibrating this early. Should probably just be silent.

Cassie: Duh. I already know that.

Scott: Do you? (head lifting from the pillow) Because when I’m still calibrating, you often give me lists of all the chores I should accomplish throughout the next four weekends.

Cassie: I do not!

Scott: (sighing) Yep.

Cassie: He wears his ear buds anyway. He can’t hear a damn thing….even if I were to strike up a conversation.

Scott: (rolling over and speaking loudly to the ceiling) You don’t strike up a conversation with a fifteen-year-old on a Sunday morning. Besides, if Max sees you mouthing words, he has to pull the ear buds out and it annoys him. (deep sigh) Trust me.

Cassie: That’s happened to you?

Scott: No. I don’t chat in the car.

Cassie: Then how do you know so much? He just ignores me. Really.

Scott: That’s not what he’s told me. He says during any given car ride, he has to yank out the buds at least five times because you’re telling him something.

Cassie: Pfft. So not true.

Scott: I’m just giving you a little advice is all.

Cassie: You don’t know everything.

Scott: When it comes to that kid and car rides, I think I do.

Cassie: You don’t say a word to him? Ever?

Scott: Not if I can help it. Only if he initiates it. Otherwise, I just exist. Next to him. In the front seat.

Later, after I’ve walked in the kitchen door with a bag of bagels and Max has already marched upstairs to return to bed….

Scott: How did that go?

Cassie: I didn’t talk….much.

Scott: Oh man.

Cassie: I saw what you meant about Max having to pull out the ear buds. But it only happened once.

Scott: Before you got the message?

Cassie: Yea. Also, he told me that talking so early in the morning made him severely nauseated.

Scott: Scare tactics, huh?

Cassie: Yep.