Call the Canaries Home

by Laura Barrow

At 9:01 p.m., Beverly Jo Pritchett entered the world, squalling like a wild hog and bald as a coot.

Men were always there for the fun parts, she thought. Women were always left to pick up the pieces.

The words hit me harder than I was prepared for. All that money we had spent on therapy, only for me to be accurately psychoanalyzed by a woman named Cricket between the toilet paper aisle and the Corn Flakes display.

Sometimes You just need an old lady to give it to you straight up.