A Request.

Photography by Ruby


Dear Thrill,

I've always been taught that if you want something, you don't use blunt force or high-pitched wailing right away. You ease into it, soften people up, hope they will give in before you have to break out the scare tactics. But that's just me and I've noticed that patience is not something that comes naturally to you. A few months ago when you turned nine months old, something in your brain seized up. I believe it was the area that tells you how to ask nicely. It was gone forever.

Recently, if you so much as hear a sliver of sound from a wrapper of any sort, from any corner of the house, your demanding screams will echo into my tender eardrum and without warning, my terror alert will register "high" for the day. Sometimes all before 8 a.m. If your nostrils so much as sniff a speck of salt from a tortilla chip, you scream in painful hunger. If things progress badly and you are not able to eat what I am eating, you launch into one of your dangerous ballads of 23-pound, back-bending tantrums. Really, Lill, really. You're not even a year old.

I am tired and don't like loud noises, so I ask you for some gentility. I know it sounds downright impossible, but try to blend in for a few days and just take what you're given. Just imagine. It will be a grand practice of self-control and if anything, will slow down my aging process.

Thanks again.