In the early ‘80s, before kids and marital meltdowns, Mark and I would sometimes go to New York to see a show and stay over at one of the big tourist hotels in midtown.

One day in late spring, her boss cruised by her cubicle in the sprawling suburban office park near her home. He often stopped by to chitchat late in the afternoon.

I’d just returned from a year living in Spain; I was still reeling from the incredible bigness of everything American—big cars, big houses, big roads, big people. But no sooner had I set foot in my house when my parents began pestering me without mercy to apply for this teaching position, which my dad had heard about through one of his golf buddies on the Beaver Heights School Board.

As I leave swim practice I see my mom hunched over the wheel of her big SUV, waiting for me. Her silhouette is backlit by the white hot floodlights that ring the high school parking lot. Her hair is frizzy and wild. I’d been hoping my dad would pick me up. No such luck.

A man in blue jeans with a grey ponytail pulled up behind me in the checkout line at the Acme. He started unloading my food, stacking it on the conveyer belt while I fumbled with the loyalty card on my keychain. Whoa! I thought. We’re now mansplaining in the checkout line?

“The voucher, it can’t be processed like you submitted it.”

“It’s just a parking voucher, Marge.”