Slice of life 3/10/09 (Tuesday)

“Do you watch the Biggest Loser?” Michelle (Shane’s sister) asks, emerging from the hallway in her grey sweats and t-shirt. I have kissed and hugged her good night, after her assertions of being exhausted from a day of travel from Newport News, Virginia.

I’m sitting on the living room floor in my own pajamas, searching for something to watch. Laurie is sitting on the couch.”No. But we don’t really watch anything regularly.”

“I told Ashley (her daughter) not to tell me what happens,” she says. “It’s the only program I watch really. I like to see the transformation of the people from the beginning to the end.”

“When does it come on?” I ask.

“Tuesdays,” she replies. I scroll and find the program is just starting.

“Do you want to stay up another hour and watch it?” I ask.

“If you don’t mind…”

“I don’t mind. I was looking for something to watch anyway.”

“Okay,” she says, visibly excited. “Let me get my…” I don’t hear the rest as she is headed down the hall to retrieve something.

I select the channel, Michelle returns and settles in on the floor using the couch as a back rest. I am laying on the floor with a couch pillow under my head.

Michelle fills Laurie and me in on the participants and players, giving us background leading up to this episode and other information as the show unfolds.

During commercials we talk about other mundane things. We both find Billie Mays annoying, have tried OxyClean and don’t think it’s all that. We talk about her history of sciatica – I can feel mine when I lay like I am – and treatments she had undergone. Who Ashley is dating and what a nice guy he is, possessing gentlemanly manners and general kindness, traits hard to find these days. The frustrations brought around by the typical teen.

We communicate more comfortably and casually in that hour than in the two preceding, likely due to the boy now being in bed. Shane, too, is asleep.

When the program ends, we sit a bit longer. I grudgingly get up to pack Ander’s lunch and Michelle heads outside for a cigarette before bed with Laurie joining her to provide company. We get back to that which was going on before.