Earlier in the kitchen the father was getting ready to prepare dinner. He was planning to try to make a dish he had never cooked before. His 2 1/2 year old son was ‘helping’. He pointed to the mixing spoon the father was using and asked “What’s that daddy?” His father replied “That’s a spoon.” He then pointed at a tablespoon and said “That’s a spoon!” His dad replied “Right that’s a spoon too.” He then pointed at a knife and said “That’s a spoon.” His dad replied “No, that’s a knife. We have to be very careful with those they are very sharp.” “Ohhh a knife.” said the son. The father was having some trouble with the new recipe, so he asked his son to go to watch TV for a bit, which the son did willingly.
Now, a-half hour later, the child is crying in the living room in front of the TV. The child’s father is in the kitchen on the phone with his mother who is helping him figure out how to cook her famous tuna casserole. He has never actually seen his mother make it, but she wrote down the recipe for him. However, he still needs her help with some of the more complicated steps. He is trying to hear her over the screams of his 2 1/2 year old son.
The mother pulls the car into the driveway. She is arriving home from a long day’s work. She has been working at the same job for 10 years with no advancement. She feels that her boss does not value her work and is extremely frustrated by this. She pauses before she gets out of the car. She’s exhausted, tired, and looks forlorn.
The dog, upon hearing the mother’s car pull up, gets excited. The dog comes up to greet the woman and jumps on her. The woman screams loudly for the dog to get off her. Her scream startles the man in the kitchen and the child starts crying more loudly. The woman now notices her child crying and her husband in the kitchen on the phone. She becomes even more upset at all the noise.
The woman picks up the child and he stops crying. The father sees this from the kitchen and shoots her a nasty look. “What are you doing?” he shouts. “Let him be.” The mother asks the toddler why he was crying. “Daddy only let me have one cookie before dinner!” is the answer “On TV when the boy cried his mother gave him a whole box of cookies!”
