pitzahut

I break open a new bag of shelled roasted peanuts and set out two paper plates on the dining room table.

I crack a few to set the mood.

"Charlie! Come here!"

"Why?" he yells from the living room, transfixed on a preview for the Transformers movie.

"Please. I want to talk to you."

He roars around the corner with trigger-happy fingertip machine guns that drop me dead in my plate of peanuts.

"Ooh, peanuts! Can I crush 'em?" he says excitedly.

"Of course, that's what they're here for. Please, crush away."

Charlie has no interest in eating the peanuts, but man does he love smashing them open. Loves it.

"Is that a new haircut, Charlie? My, you're looking handsome today."

"No?

"Looking slim. Been working out?"

"No?"

"Are you comfortable? Can I get you a nice merlot, perhaps a cigar?"

"Drink please," he says, enjoying the attention.

I pour his raspberry Crystal Light, pop a blue straw in and continue to woo him like he's my date at the sweetheart dance.

We're silent for a moment, busting open our peanuts workmanlike. Charlie lines up the peeled nuts around the perimeter of the plate like a string of pearls. He fits a broken shell on the tip of his thumb and wears it like a crooked soldier's helmet.

"So, Charlie, I want to talk to you about something."

Charlie sighs.

"You're not going to try to get me to eat a peanut again, are you?" he asks.

"No. I'm not."

I pause before breaking the news to him.

"Tomorrow I need to take you to give blood. You know, when the doctor puts the needle in your arm. For your A1c."

I braced for an avalanche of tears and resistance.

Charlie raised his fist high over his head and slammed it down hard.

"OK," he answered, like it was no big deal, sifting carefully through the nut wreckage for the one that looked like a penguin.