5:48 am
*door hinges creaking, whisper*
Mummy? Mum?
Mmmm?
Mummy Mummy? MUM!
Frank.
What day is it?
Come into bed for a second, we can talk —
No Mum, it’s time to get up. I’m in my whole uniform and I’ve already put two stars on the chart and I haven’t even been watching YouTube at all by the way and if I was it was only Dar Man, which is educational so…
Uh, okay.
Also Mum, I asked you a question?
Huh…
Mummy! Are you even listening? You need to focus. Literally. What day is it?
*moving body slowly out of bed*
Tuesday, I think?
You think or you know? Because there’s a big difference between thinking something and knowing things. A huge difference actually. It’s like the difference between a cinema film or a documentarium.
You mean a documentary.
No Mummy, I mean a documentarium. You know the place that’s like a cinema but you look up in the dark at the planets on the ceiling and it’s real? You literally took me and Solly there once—
Yes, yes.
Actually, now that I mention it, technically a documentarium is not real — only the sky is real — but it is different to a regular cinema movie because it’s science and facts and a movie is like a play with actors but on a big screen.
That’s amazing.
It’s really not amazing, Mum, I promise you. It’s just normal stuff. Anyway, what day is it — definitely?
*fumbles with phone*
Tuesday.
*smacks head*
OH GOD MUM! Oh now, I just knew it. Jesus shitting christ.
Frank! Language!
Sorry, sorry.
What’s wrong with Tuesdays?
What kind of a question is that? Tuesdays are the worst! The absolute worst of all the days! I hate them!
You do?
Yes. They’re just… oh god! Mum, I suspected it might be a Tuesday. I had this awful feeling when I woke up and… to be honest, that why I watched YouTube, but it was only for like ten minutes and honestly there was no swearing or anything.
Frank —
Oh God, oh god… Tuesdays are my most unfavourite day, of all the seven. There’s only seven right?
Normally, yes.
Normally or always?
Always. I mean always. What’s wrong with Tuesdays, Frank? I don’t —
Seriously Mum, sometimes I’m just like. ‘How can we both live in the same house? Who even is this woman?’ How can you not have noticed?
Noticed what?
Tuesdays are random.
They are?
Yes! Totally random. There’s nothing on a Tuesday. Not swimming or football. It’s not the weekend or the beginning of the week or the end of the week. It’s not PE. Even Wednesdays are at least the middle and I have to bring in my homework folder so I get to worry about if I might lose it. On Mondays I have drama club, there’s spellings on Fridays so I stress about spelling on Thursdays, but Tuesdays… like seriously, what’s the point of them?
I don’t know.
EXACTLY! That’s what I’m saying. On Tuesdays it’s just get up, go to school, playtime, home, dinner, bed. There’s nothing to love, nothing to hate. I hate hate them. They make me feel dead.
Whoa buddy, aren’t you kind of overstating it?
No! I feel dead, okay? You said it’s okay to feel my feelings and I FEEL DEAD BECAUSE IT’S TUESDAY.
Okay, okay, okay. That’s valid.
Dead or just kind of like kind of… stressed… you know? No wait, not exactly stressed, that’s not quite it, it’s more boring that an actually, more zzzzz. But also, at the same time, much, much worser.
*thinking*
The Tuesday feeling Mum, it’s kind of like… like this grey-jelly-all-over my body feeling, you know?
Yeah. I do actually.
It’s like, on a Tuesday there’s just nothing. Like zero, zilch, nada, blah, blah, blah. I feel like I don't even exist, or I do exist but all the other stuff on the other days doesn’t really matter and it’s all just made up and silly and what’s the actual point of it really? I mean, if you think about it, we could be anywhere doing anything and Tuesdays make you think about that kind of stuff in a not fun way. I mean, we could be dead or in the future or we could be living on a star or in The Gambia —
I think it’s ‘Gambia.’
No Mum, it’s The Gambia. Trust me, we did a whole unit on it in geography, my co-teacher is from there.
Okay sorry.
It’s meant to be really nice there by the way. There are loads of farms and a big capital city called Something and instead of winter and summer they have the rainy season and the dry — WAIT! Is it Tuesday in The Gambia too?
I think so.
Can you check on your phone?
Frank I’m trying to find my socks.
Fine, fine. So um… Mum?
Yeh?
If it’s literally Tuesday in The Gambia, do you think Tuesdays are random there too?
Probably.
Probably or…?
Definitely Frank. One hundred percent for sure.
Interesting. So Mum, do you think everyone feels this way on Tuesdays? Like, not just on the planet earth but people who live on stars and ghosts in the future?
About Tuesdays or just in general?
Both.
Uh…
*sniffs sports bra*
Never mind Mum. It’s okay.
It is?
Yeah, I can tell you don’t actually know. I know you don’t know a lot of things. You don’t need to pretend to me anymore. I’m a big boy now, I can handle it.
Oh. Okay.
I mean if I’m honest I was a little disappointed when I found out but…
When was that?
I think when I was about two and three quarters? Although, the truth is, I kind of knew it before I got born.
You did?
Yeah, I could feel it in your tummy.
Feel what?
That you were really nice and everything but — no offence — you just didn’t, like, know a lot of stuff.
Busted.
Yeah, well.
It’s fine Frank.
It is fine. Thank you! And look Mum, you have nothing to feel ashamed of. You know that right? You’re perfectly good just the way you are, okay? It’s not your fault.
Thanks Frank.
Good, good. And also, I want you to know that, now that I’m seven, I’m fine with it too. Seriously, I can handle it.
Even on Tuesdays?
Yeah, yeah totally. I’ve got this, Mum.
Awesome Frank.
Yeah. No worries.
*pause*
Hey Mum?
Yes?
When you were little, on Wednesdays, did you always take in your homework folder in or did you usually you sometimes forget?
I think I usually remembered.
But not all the time.
No.
Well it shows.
You know what’s funny…I like Tuesdays this year because my kids get pizza on Tuesdays which means I don’t have to make lunches and they have a lunch to look forward to: it’s a win win. Maybe that’s the secret - Pizza lol because without it Tuesdays would really suck.
-
Also - I have a cousin who lives in Australia and I’m always telling my kids she lives in the future. And really for them it’s Wednesday already. And if they got through Tuesday then we all can. :)
Got to love the 7 year old mind.
Also, just for conversation's sake my worldly experience is such that it seems there's some truth to the fact that many of us actually genuinely have a day of the week where things just don't work out well. Consistently and weekly. I've heard them referred to has "enemy" days. It's the day of the week to, if you are the sort of person who pays attention to all kinds of little messages the body sends all the time, note where and what seems to be not quite right, or do-able. Not the day, for instance, to start something new. Not the day to take on a difficult task.
Frank may just have a very early and clearly well defined sense of what some people take a lifetime to discover. 🤗