I was organizing the cupcake platters in my frosting-splattered apron. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my kids zooming around the white-clothed tables.

My attempts to be cheerfully friendly yet somberly sympathetic to the funeral patrons were failing. I didn’t sleep well the previous night. I was tired and stressed and sad about our housing problem.

Another funeral luncheon volunteer approached my table with the juice bottles I’d been waiting for. She knew a little of our housing crisis, so she politely asked if we had found a house yet.

You guys. You guuuyyyysssss.

I SHOULD have said “Not yet, darn it!” because that’s the polite & proper thing to say at a funeral luncheon.

But I was too tired and stressed and sad about the house problem to be polite.

INSTEAD I said “We did find a house actually, but then found out the next door neighbor just got out of jail for r*ping kids and using hidden cameras to spy on naked women. TWICE”

Understandably, this gave the volunteer some pause.

And for some awful reason, my tired, stressed, sad brain thought it was worth repeating to another volunteer. And to their friends. I literally motioned in a half circle of reluctant women to tell them the short, sad tale of not buying a house because of the sexually deviant neighbors.

Sure, I had been assigned to pour juice cups and comfortingly pat funeral attendees on the shoulder; why not also share the stories of victimized women and children in the area?

Whyyyyyyyyyyy am I like thiiiiiisssssss

And then my children joined in the fray.

As far as their genetic makeup goes, these kids inherited their father’s beauty and my impeccable humor. But they also inherited my keen ability to be a societal embarrassment at the worst times.

I ducked back into the kitchen to grab more cupcakes. My kids followed into the next room over. idk how but the kids found a crawling space between rooms that led into the kitchen. Within the kitchen were other women chatting as they mixed up a berry salad. Obviously, they were unawares of my kids’ mischievous plot. With synchronous reaction so well executed that all of the bees are now saved, my children crept up behind the unsuspecting women and SCREAMED at them.

In hindsight, I don’t think the women were all that fazed by my crotch goblins’ antics. Most of us have kids. Even the ones without have been screamed at by a tiny person before. Of course, it would have been hilarious had the occasion been different. However, at the time I was terribly embarrassed that my 7, 5, and 3 year old would ever scream at someone other than their mother.

I ordered their naughty little butts to the hallway for a scolding. With my voice raised higher than it should have been, I said the following:

“An old lady here is DEAD!!! You CANNOT go uh-sCaRiNG people when someone has DIED. People are SAD. Because their grandma is DEAD.”

Arrow looked away, lips twitching to hide a smile at my outburst. Sander also avoided my gaze, but not out of shame. He was intently staring at a box elder box stuck in the carpet fibers. Only Archer met my eyes, his own soft, blueberry eyes clearly puzzled.

“A grandma… is dead?” he asked.

I paused to formulate a response, but noticed something felt off. The hallway felt cool with the echoes of my overreaction dampening. I looked up.

As fate would have it, the grieving family had just arrived to the church from the graveside service. They stood at the end of the hallway, politely trying to look around my motely crew. We were quite literally blocking their path to enter the lunch. The volunteers were attempting to carry bowls of berry salad around us without drawing attention.

Literally everyone- kids, family, servers, the grandma’s ghost- had heard me using the deceased woman’s mortality status to scold the dickens out of some mildly naughty children.

My family and I fled the premises so fast that even Moses & his people would have been impressed.

Later that day, Archer sullenly approached me. He only had one question.

“Does sneaking up on grandmas kill them?”

No. Go back. You read that wrong. You read it like a little boy worried out the wellbeing of his grandparents. You are mistaken. Archer asked me in a reverent tone as if I was about to impart the secrets of necromancy. “Does sneaking up on grandmas… kill them?”

I would be worried about his excitement. I should be. But I’m too tired, stressed, and sad to deal with this right now.

Someone warn my mom, though.