Kid: I can’t do my homework this morning because I don’t have any lined paper.
(this is the beginning of the conversation. Not, “good morning” or “hello” or even “you! listen and obey!”, which means I’m only gradually tuning in as the sentence is coming out. And I’m totally confused: I slept about two hours, again, and it seems to me that not having the basic tools to do a task would prevent him from doing it at all, not just at seven am)
Me: I don’t understand. Why can’t you do your homework this morning?
Kid: I don’t have any lined paper.
(now, the Kid told us when we picked himup that he about three hours of homework. he almost never has weekend homework, so we hadn’t planned a study period, and M suggested this early morning window in an otherwise busy weekend. I’m thinking now that the Kid is lodging a backhanded protest about doing it so early, which i totally empathize with, but I still don’t get how not having paper is a sticking point now, but wouldn’t be later. I figure there’s something here I’m clearly not getting.)
Me: When you left school, did you have a plan for how you were going to do this homework?
Kid: yes.
Me: And what was it?
(intending by this clever question to suss out why later it would be easier to write a report with no paper.)
Kid ( looking at me as I’ve either been recently lobotomized or am fucking with him): The plan was that I would write my report.
Me: but now…?
Kid: I don’t have any lined paper.
Me: How do you think you might solve this problem?
Kid: I don’t know. I don’t know if we have any lined paper or not.
(this is the point where it suddenly occurs to me that he’s not really trying to tell me he can’t do his homework. he’s really asking, in his passive-aggressive ten-year-old way, if he can borrow some paper. also dimly aware that this annoying new habit is not a crisis of character, just an annoying phase)
Me: We do. Several books worth. Would you like to borrow some?
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