“You really want Subway for dinner?” I asked Max for the third time as we were pulling out of the Super T.
“Yes, I just love Subway,” he said. “The white cheese is just amazing.”

Since I had decided how we were going to spend Friday night (grocery shopping and then vegging), I decided that Max got to pick what we had for dinner.

“What do you eat at Subway?”
“Just cheese and bread,” he said.
“Just cheese and bread?”
“Aunt Jodi, I told you I was weird.”
“Boo,” I said. “Everyone’s weird, there’s nothing wrong with being weird.”
“How are you weird?” he asked.

I stared straight ahead and rattled through all my eccentricities trying to find one that would be suitable to share with a 7-year-old boy. Something he would find a little weird and perhaps reassuring. The alphabetizing of books, my sexual proclivities, my sleeping sans clothes, counting the steps when I walk up them, my teeth-brushing habits, none of it was appropriate.

“Aunt Jodi, how are you weird?” he asked again.
“I don’t like marshmallows,” I said.
“What?” He gasped and grabbed his face. “You don’t like marshmallows?”
“I know,” I said.
“What about S’mores? They’re so delicious.”
“I only like them if you really burn the marshmallow so it gets all crunchy.”
“Wow.”
“Also, I don’t like pie.”
“Any pie?”
“Nope.”
“You don’t eat pumpking pie?”
“Never.”
“You are weird.”