Vitamins.

Or: Conversation in Which My Mother Suspects She Gave Birth to an Idiot.

Me: I've started taking vitamins again.

Mom: Why?

Me: Because it's easier than making it to the gym.

Mom: If you just ate balanced meals with vegetables, you'd be fine.

Me: I'm in my fifth year of graduate school. I barely sleep. I have school loans that haunt me like jackals. Where would these balanced meals come from? (though, upon reflection, I suppose while I spend time writing this)

Mom: Don't be a brat. Don't we feed you?

Me: When I'm home! Why do you think I demand steak and seafood while I'm here?

Mom: Because you're a spoiled brat?

Me: Ha.

Mom: What are you taking?

Me: Um, some B-complex thingie (stress and weight loss), calcium (because I don't fancy the hunchback look and because my nails become rock hard. Seriously, I can wound people with them.), a multi, and thiamin.

Mom: Why thiamin?

Me: Because it's suppose to change your smell and then mosquitos won't bite you.

Mom: (eyes rolling into the back of her head) Change your smell?

Me: Hey, that's just what I read.

Mom: You know B vitamins change the color of your pee, right?

Me: What?

Mom: Turns it acid yellow.

(long silence)

Me: Oh, thank God, I thought I was going into liver failure.

THE END.