No more T.V. or video game system.
Gone was the couch.
His favorite recliner had been pilfered.
In their place was a blackboard, an adult-sized crib, and a stool placed in the corner.
What Douglas saw looked like some kind of preschool classroom.
“Where did you get this stuff? Where’d all of my stuff go?”
The pacifier was picked up and shoved back in his mouth before he could finish his second sentence.
Mommy Melissa booped the pacifier on his mouth.
“Keep this in your mouth.” She smiled,
Douglas could hear the “or else” in her voice.
She waited a moment.
He sucked the pacifier.
Finally, she said,
“It’s time for your punishment.”
Time for his punishment?
This wasn’t his punishment?
He was led to the blackboard.
Up close he noticed a few extra details,
like how the alphabet border around the rolled-in chalkboard only had the letters A, B, D, and L.
His girlfriend
ex-girlfriend
Melissa
Now his Mommy
As in Mommy Melissa picked up a piece of chalk and put it in his hand.
“You’re going to write ‘Babies don’t have jobs’ two hundred times on this blackboard.”
The diapered boy looked at the rolled out blackboard.
“Uh-kay” he mumbled around the binky.
It wasn’t the biggest blackboard, in the world, but if he kept his writing small enough he should just be able to squeeze it in, no problem.
“With your right hand.”
“What!”
No way could he use his non-dominant hand!
No possible way!
As a guy, his handwriting was sloppy enough,
but in his right hand it’d be almost impossible!
Just…like…a…
Mommy wasn’t hearing any of it.
“Get to work, baby boy.”
The swat to his padded backside didn’t hurt, but it did make him jump to work.
She stood back, watching him expectantly.
Dougie slumped.
He really was in the doghouse this time.
His diaper crinkled a bit as he nervously shifted his weight.
His gait was off too,
wider than it normally would have been, with all the pulp and padding forcing his legs further apart.
He really hoped he’d never have to get used to this…
Slowly, with shaky and sloppy writing, Dougie wrote down:
Babies don’t have jobs
Babies don’t have jobs
Babies don’t have jobs
He found that if he wrote in all caps it went faster.
He just wanted this to be over.
To stop being treated like a naughty little boy, and to get his big boy pants back on.
Babies don’t have jobs
And so on it went until his fingers hurt and his wrist ached.
Please just let this be over.
Much, much, much, much too soon, he ran out of room.
Even writing as fast and as small as he could, he just barely broke a hundred before all the space was taken up.
“Mmmy,” he mumbled. “Um utta rm.”
Mommy walked up, and held her hand under her chin.
She grabbed the eraser from the blackboard and sent every sentence to oblivion.
“Too bad,” she said.
“None of that counts.
Try it again.