Done Adulting Vol. 1 Ch. 38

When they were done playing, Jamie took Rosie’s hand, and they returned to the group. “Did you have fun, Rosie,” Jane asked.

“Yes,” she said in her younger voice, “I was the only one who could catch Jamie.” She winked at him.

“I saw. You were so good!”

“I bet you both worked up an appetite,” Becky said. “Are you guys ready for lunch?”

“Yes, please,” they said in unison.

“Let’s change your shirt first,” Amanda said, picking up her backpack and pulling out a clean shirt. “Do you want to keep your shoes on, or do you want your sandals?”

“Sandals, please.” She tossed him a shirt and helped him change his shoes. Rosie was helped into her stroller, and Jamie opted to walk. Amanda handed him another water bottle.

“We can walk to downtown?”

“It’s not downtown downtown. Just the downtown of our suburb,” Becky explained. “You know, restaurants, little shops, city hall.” It was only six blocks, but it was six Itali blocks, and Jamie was already tired when they started walking.

Jamie would have easily pegged the area as the older part of town. The houses looked less modern and more ornate. Some could have been featured in Giant Home and Giant Garden, if there were such a magazine. They passed what looked like a church, though Jamie had no idea if they had churches and, if they did, no reason to think what looked like a church to him really was.

Across from the church was where the commercial district started. Bar-and-grill restaurants stood on opposite corners. A small hardware store was nearby. Clothing boutiques, an antique store, a bike shop, knick-knack stores, other restaurants. It was a healthy downtown, and Jamie sensed a spirit of community and civic pride.

Becky led them into a tavern that said O’Donnell’s on the door. A waitress greeted them at half-wall with a brass railing separating booths and tables from the bar area. “Three adults and two littles?”

“Yes,” Becky answered.

The waitress took three menus from a stack of them and showed them to a table. “Do we need highchairs?”

“How about one highchair and one booster seat.” The waitress nodded and was back shortly with both. Jamie looked at the menu. It was laminated and felt well used, old, the way menus at long-established restaurants are supposed to feel. On the walls were pictures, some that looked decades old, of sports teams; Jamie assumed they were from the local schools.

“You can order from the regular menu or the little menu,” Becky explained.

“Can I start you off with some drinks,” asked a new waitress. Everyone stuck with water.

“Is the little menu like the food from the grocery store,” Jamie asked.

“Yep, and it’s a smaller portion size.” Jamie liked the sound of that. He wasn’t sure what it was about the formula and the cookies; it wasn’t just that they were sweet or even that they tasted so good. It was more like a feeling of release. Jamie knew about how the brain worked, and he figured whatever it was triggered some kind of dopamine and serotonin release. He’d be worried, but he assumed they wouldn’t put anything harmful in little food. Sugar, he knew, was the bigger threat. There wasn’t much on the menu Jamie could eat yet; he chose the grilled cheese. When he emptied his water glass, Amanda refilled it from his bottle.

The bigs chatted, and Jamie peopled watched. There was the office crowd, but it was small. There weren’t many offices around that he could see on the way. There was the stay-at-home parent crowd, like they were, at least until summer was over. More tables, though, were occupied by older people, young retirees to old retirees. Jamie watched them and tried to listen to the conversations nearest him.

After a few months in his first job, he liked to tell people that when he grew up he wanted to be a retiree for a living. It was just a little gallows humor, but the core of truth in it always bothered him a bit. It seemed a waste to have to wait until the very end of middle age to be able to have leisure in life; real leisure, not weekends interrupted by errands and two weeks a year spent answering emails on a beach. Leisure to learn; leisure to grow; leisure to just relax, take a greater interest in the people in your life, be a part of your community.

Not everyone gets to retire, he knew, and it wasn’t just that some people had to keep working into old age, but that some people didn’t make it retirement. Life was as much luck as design, and a system that left some people working up until they died young seemed a system not designed for the humans stuck within it. Or those who did make it to retirement age, but with such health problems they couldn’t enjoy the years they had literally worked their entire lives for. What good did that system do for anyone, he wanted to know, who wanted to put more of the brief time they had to their own purposes? Even those at the top didn’t benefit from it; there was no longer a leisure class defined by wealth; now, the wealthy worked longer than the people like Jamie, sadly, it seemed, because they couldn’t think of anything better to do.

So Jamie watched the retirees, some of whom must have been eating there for decades, whose pictures may even be on the walls. Perhaps some of them met their friends there once a week. Perhaps their lunch out was part of some eventful day. Regardless, they looked happier than the office crowd or the stay-at-home parent crowd. This was the time they had worked for, the time to linger over a meal with someone they cared about.

“Jamie?”

“O! Sorry, I was watching people. Um, what did you ask?”

“Whether you were excited for daycare,” Jane said.

“Well,” he pondered, “It’s gonna be a hard, I think. But, sort of, I am.”

“Why is that?”

“I miss getting to know new people. I don’t like being very social, but I’d still like to meet new people, maybe make a friend.”

“I think that’s a very positive attitude to have,” Jane said. “Some littles go to daycare screaming like they’re being left on the street corner in a cardboard box marked ‘FREE.’”

That got some laughs, except from Rosie who was engrossed in her coloring in a book Jane had brought along in the diaper bag. Jamie tried to see her work, but he couldn’t from his seat.

“Are you scared at all?”

Jamie half-frowned. “Yeah, a little. I don’t make friends easily. And I haven’t had much luck with bigs so far.”

Their lunches arrived. Jamie’s was as good as he expected it to be. The French fries were perfect, the bread was grilled just the right amount, the blend of cheeses was perfect, and it all melted together so well.

“Watching you today I think you’re going to make friends easily.”

“Ya think so? I’m kinda worried about being the only unregressed little. Or maybe the only.”

“Why is that?”

“Because … if you’re regressed then it makes sense for bigs to treat you the way they do. If you’re not … some of it seems … infantilizing. And I wonder if some people, even littles, judge unregressed littles for that.”

Becky and Jane tried to reassure him with a smile. Rosie, as always, looked like she and she alone knew where to find unicorns and couldn’t be happier to keep the secret. Amanda looked uncomfortable.

“Baby,” Becky responded, “no one judges littles for being littles, I promise you.” Jamie smiled back, but he didn’t understand. What was the difference between treating someone like an infant and treating a little like a little? And where did that leave him, someone with the mind and body of an adult who had signed away his agency and autonomy, essentially agreeing to be treated however a big wanted to treat him despite being fully aware, at least in theory, he was capable of taking care of himself?

Jamie could see how it made sense to bigs if they saw all littles as never being adults, though he wondered what the right analogy would be then – were littles like children to bigs who didn’t see them as adults, or were they seen as mentally incompetent or even not quite persons, like a pet? He of course didn’t see himself any of those ways. Even as he became more comfortable with being there, he didn’t know why he was there or how he thought it would help or why Cheryl thought it would or if he should be resisting every attempt to “little-ize” him or infantilize him with every tool he could grab hold of.

Becky continued, “It’s like we talked about, remember, the day of your doctor visit? You’re a little, too, different from the regressed ones but still a little. And bigs like us and the people at the daycare – who I made sure you’re going to like – know what’s best for littles. You just follow the rules and be yourself, and everyone will love you by the end of the day. I promise.”

Jamie did remember that conversation, and he remembered the question he chose not to ask that day: But why do littles get treated differently?He wanted to ask, but he was suddenly feeling tired from playing. Very, very tired. And good. Tired and good. Good and tired, he thought in his head but chuckled out loud, Tired and good.

“Okay, Becky. Want some of my French fwies?” All she had was a salad. How boring. It’s not even fattening, he thought. Did I just say ‘fwies?’

“No thank you, sweetie.” Jamie didn’t either; he was done with his lunch. He didn’t hear much of the rest of the conversation.

When everyone was done, Jamie felt so good. His muscles were loose, and he felt warm but not too warm. He was fine staying there for a while, maybe getting a fresh order of those French fries in an hour or two.

“Ready to go, Jamie?” He dopily smiled back at Amanda without answering; she knelt down to get a closer look. Amanda waved her hand in front of Jamie’s face. His eyes looked heavy.

“Everything alright,” Becky asked.

“Yeah, he’s fine. If he’s going to play that hard, we should make sure eats some regular food before little food. I think it just got good to him.” She lifted him up on her shoulder and carried him back to the entrance, where they’d left their strollers.

Jane looked at his drooping eyes. “I think they call that ‘food drunk.’ Sorta like a sugar crash but without the ground shattering temper tantrum first. He’ll get used to it the more little food he eats.”

Jamie fell asleep on the ride home dreaming of dipping French fries in cookies blended with formula.