There's One on Your Chair
by Andrea Mulder-Slater My mother and I were sitting in the magazine lounge of a library we had never been in before. We were waiting for my daughter to learn how to play chess because when you homeschool, you enroll your kids in strategic board game workshops led by cheerful retirees. It’s in the handbook. Fifteen minutes in, I noticed a little black fluff on the water bottle wedged in the outer pocket of my backpack. I could have left it alone but my phone battery was dying so I was looking for something else to do.