Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 71843 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 359(@200wpm)___ 287(@250wpm)___ 239(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71843 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 359(@200wpm)___ 287(@250wpm)___ 239(@300wpm)
Jory: Your concern is what, that his testosterone might be low?
Dylan: Could be. It’s worth checking before their marriage goes to hell in a handbasket.
Jory: Okay. Tell her that they first go see a doctor together, and if everyone has a clean bill of health, then it’s off to the marriage counselor.
Dylan: Oooh, look at me helping and shit.
Jory: Charming.
Dylan: Be nice or I’ll tell Sam that you’re going nuts because your leg itches and then he’ll give you Benadryl and you’ll be out like a light.
Jory: My leg does itch, now that I think about it.
Dylan: Think about something else. Like how much work we have piling up in the office.
Jory: You’re a ray of bloody sunshine.
Dylan: I do what I can.
DEAR JORY:
Do you have game night at home with your kids? If so, is it mandatory? I feel like after dinner every night, after the dishes are done, everyone retreats to their room. My wife watches TV, my son goes back to his computer, and my daughter gets back online with her friends. I’d love to corral them all and talk. Thoughts?
Jory: I think a mandatory game night would help here.
Aja: Is yours mandatory?
Jory: No. Is yours?
Aja: No, but I think that’s because we’ve always done it, so everyone is used to it.
Jory: Do you have TV night?
Aja: We do, but that’s usually me and Gen in one room and your brother and Rob in the other, because they watch documentaries and me and Gen do Netflix. We just finished Dracula.
Jory: Oh, was that good?
Aja: It was good until the very end. Bit of a letdown, but that’s just my opinion. Gen liked it more than I did.
Jory: I’ll give it a shot. But does Robert actually like documentaries, or is he just humoring Dane?
Aja: Oh no. He LOVES them just like his father does. It’s sick and wrong.
Jory: Don’t make me laugh, I’m bruised.
Aja: Sorry. So what are we telling this lovely lady?
Jory: Tell her she needs to start by bribing them with candy. Play a round of Monopoly, there’s chocolate plus two hundred dollars every time you pass go.
Aja: I like that. We can’t play Monopoly anymore. It gets too ugly.
Jory: That’s because Dane, like Aaron, brings a little too much real world into it.
Aja: Agreed. What do you guys play?
Jory: Ugh.
Aja: Tell me.
Jory: We still play Monopoly, and it’s ugly and weird because we play by Aaron’s rules, and there are strange pieces now too.
Aja: Strange pieces?
Jory: You don’t want to know, but we also play Uno.
Aja: Oh, I love Uno.
Jory: Not at my house you wouldn’t.
Aja: Why?
Jory: House rules.
Aja: Like what?
Jory: The rules of the Kage clan are that you can stack those plus two cards. I had to pick up twelve once.
Aja: Oh dear God.
Jory: Yeah. I know. You can also stack plus four cards, but you can’t go out on a plus two or a plus four.
Aja: Like that can’t be your last card?
Jory: Correct.
Aja: What kind of crap is that?
Jory: I know.
Aja: Basically what you’re telling me is that these are Sam’s rules.
Jory: Technically, they’re his father’s rules, because they came from there.
Aja: What about if you don’t have a card to play?
Jory: Then you draw until you do.
Aja: Not just two?
Jory: No. I once picked up half the deck. It’s brutal. What makes it worse is the song.
Aja: I’m sorry?
Jory: Pick it up, pick-pick it up, oh, oh oh!
Aja: The hell was that?
Jory: That’s the song that is sung as you draw cards. The longer you draw cards, the more annoying it gets.
Aja: It’s annoying now. And what is that sung to? That’s really familiar.
Jory: Pick it up, pick-pick it up, oh, oh, oh…
Aja: Don’t do it again, crazy person. You could get it stuck in my…in…oh God no.
Jory: Hah!
Aja: Holy crap. When did that song even come out?
Jory: “Lick It Up” by Kiss was released in 1983.
Aja: You sounded frighteningly close to Alexa when you just said that.
Jory: …
Aja: Don’t cackle.
Jory: My kids know “Lick It Up” because my husband, their father, who’s an evil genius and king of getting the worst things possible stuck in your head—I swear earworms as torture should be explored—has been singing that song in its twisted version since they were old enough to hold Uno cards.
Aja: I bet they even hate the original now.
Jory: You would too if it had been sung to you over and over every time you had to pick up an endless supply of cards.
Aja: Oh for crap’s sake, now you’ve got me humming it.
Jory: I told you, it’s insidious.
Aja: I like card games…normally…like three-to-thirteen.
Jory: I don’t know that one.
Aja: It’s fun and easy, but shuffling all the decks becomes a pita. We have an automatic card shuffler, because only I can do the bridge.
Jory: What is that?
Aja: You know, after you do the riffle, you lift your hands to create the bridge and all the cards go back together in a neat stack.