I was sitting on my desk, a hand in my hair, a pencil tapping at my chin thoughtfully.

The house was empty, save for me, the family dog Esteban, a pair of lovebirds and a single rabbit.

Okay, okay, maybe the house wasn’t that empty. But still, I was the only human being here!

I sighed again, and got this urge to bang my head ceaselessly against the wall. Esteban put his head on my knee, and Cookie, one of the lovebirds, chirped my right eardrum off.

Suddenly, I heard the car rev into the garage, and the door slammed open, making Esteban’s large black and white head jerk up; Cookie and Chip fluttered nervously in their huge cage.

You know how they say lightning never strikes twice in the same place?

My mom was certainly a bolt of lightning that had incinerated the same part of me way too many times.

“Gwendolyn Elizabeth Hayes!”

I cringed.