Almost Willed Into Existence

Kyle is my (imaginary) personal assistant.  He's 20, with dark, asymmetrical hair and always wears skinny jeans, plaid shirts, and one of those across the shoulder satchels.  Gay, of course, because no one wants it to get awkward when it turns out that I'm easy to fall in love with, with my addiction to dry shampoo and all.

Every morning, Kyle comes over right about the time that Trent is leaving for work.  He wakes me up with a cup of coffee that he made when he arrived and gets right in my face and says, "Good morning, Mrs. Williams.  It's going to be a great day."  Kyle always smells like Winterfresh gum, hair gel, and super expensive cologne.  I keep telling him that we don't pay him enough to spend that much on cologne, but he doesn't care.  I always say, "Call me Kelly" and he goes, "Okay, Kel."  Because I love when people call me Kel!

Tejano music is already turned on in the bathroom so I can get ready in peace, then Kyle comes in to let me know the dishwasher is unloaded and brief me on the day's news, including pop culture.  Then I go about my day as usual, waking up kids and making breakfast, because Kyle's not a nanny or a maid; he's a personal assistant.  He sits on a tall stool with a twisty seat, perched in the corner of the kitchen until he's needed.  He keeps his ear buds in and messes about on his phone until I say something like, "Hey Kyle, last night I heard one of the cats throw up a hairball right before I fell asleep.  Can you please find that and clean it up?"  And he's already on it.

Kyle's not bad with kids, but he's not great with them either.  He mainly just gives blank looks or waves from his stool.  The kids regard him as a lovable weirdo.  He's not here to help the kids; he's here to help me.

He's really helpful when we're trying to get out the door for school.  I might realize that we forgot about Tate's Pre-K homework, so we'll be frantically working on that when I realize that I haven't packed Holly's backpack.  So I'll yell, "Kyle, grab and handful of diapers and write Holly's name on them!  NO, NOT FOUR!  A HANDFUL!  TEN DIAPERS!  HURRY SCHOOL STARTS IN THREE MINUTES!!!!!  DAMMIT KYLE GO!!!!!"  We all love Kyle because he takes the brunt of my frustration yelling.

I'm still going about all my regular business, but Kyle is making it possible for me to do that by doing all the things for me that are a huge hassle, like checking email.  After I drop the kids at school, he's right beside me walking to the car with his phone out as we go through my correspondence.  Then he goes to facebook for me and "likes" all my friends' posts while unfriending anyone who says that Jesus told us to use semi-automatic weapons.  He rolls his eyes while doing that; we both do.

Kyle also excels at special projects.  Like he finds a bunch of great babysitters, does preliminary interviews with them, then gathers them in a room for my approval.  He's mostly free to go do his own thing during the day and not hang around, but he'll run an errand to the pharmacy if necessary.  He always handles returns and exchanges.  He's back every day by 3:15 for homework.  Then I hand him a crisp $1000 bill, because he's worth it, and say, "See you tomorrow at 6:15!"  Kyle high fives all the kids, then he's out.

Kyle never says anything bad about me to his friends.  One of his buddies might say, "Ugh, how was Kelly today? Yelling up a storm?"  And Kyle just says, "Don't you ever speak ill of her, She's doing her best and she's probably the best mother in the whole entire world."

All I want for Christmas- is Kyle.