taking it for the team presumes a team
Monica loves how clown dolls pull a happy face, taking it for the team. She also loves retirement parties and threw herself a few. Half dozen, for the ring of creation, became 7. After all, she was the take-it-for-the-team teacher. Her students given top marks by definition, being her students.
Monica’s only lament is no flesh friends. Not even at the free-food retirement parties. It had to be jealousy. Besides, who needs them, what with her matriarchal family, her Grand-Ma-Ma title. No others allowed triple-syllable rank. Blood is thicker than water, but even they endure.
She and “Crampy” Cassius live in a rambling family home. With daughters. Husbands. Grand-children. Downstairs, where none may leave her. None may vacation apart. No birthdays or holidays with in-laws—and why would they, it’s for their own good. Hers is the family that matters.
Hers is the family that nurtures Monica’s narrative of the greatest. The Grandest Grand-Ma-Ma. Still taking it for the team. Until, that is, that slight from an outer-orbit elementary teacher. Elementary. Hardly on the radar and no more than a baby-sitter. ( Aren’t they all? )
A baby-sitter who failed to attend her grand-da-da’s name-sake day. Her saint’s day. Her half-year birthday. One of those. Worse, failed to send the obligatory clown doll for the ever-expanding altar. So, for the slight, Monica planted a seed. From her lips to her daughter’s ear.
From basement-dwelling son-in-law to his mother, to her partner — the baby-sitter. None but blood to have a title, or be visited, or need visit. It was a lesson learned trading fluffy marks for fuzzy reviews. Status will suffice when there is no content to contribute. It earns parties, if not friends.
