I nearly snapped over a missing pencil case

Dear Delyara, It wasn’t about the pencil case. It was about the timing, the rush, the constant assumption that I will somehow become the locating service for every object that goes missing in this house. By the time the question came, I had already packed lunches, checked forms, answered one text from work, reminded everyone about shoes, and looked for two other things that should not have been my responsibility to track. When my son shouted from upstairs asking where his pencil case was, I could feel the answer rise in me sharper than the child deserved. I didn’t shout. I did answer in a tone I regretted immediately. We found it in the car. Of course we did.