...And That's What's Known as Relativity

Yesterday I nagged my 21-year old son for the fortieth time to take his medicine. He had just brewed an alarmingly strong batch of coffee and I watched as he poured the cream into his cup. This coffee was so strong that the cream did not disperse into the usual clouds, but disappeared someplace under the black depths, not emerging until he plied the spoon. Horrified, I had to comment. "Oh my God is that strong!" I said. "How many scoops of coffee did you use? And take your pill!"

"Mom," he said patiently, "I will. And just because you have been reduced by advanced age to a coffee wimp these days is no reason for me not to enjoy my coffee. Now excuse me while I get ready to shower."

As I cleaned up after him, putting away the coffee, the Sweet-n-Low, the creamer, and his spoon, another Mom Thought occurred to me. I strode purposefully toward the bathroom where he was standing, clothed only in a towel around his waist, digging at his ear with a Q-Tip.
"Hey," I said. "You said this antibiotic makes you queasy, and here you are, drinking ridiculously strong coffee and about to step into a hot shower. You haven't eaten anything. You're just asking to make yourself sick. Turn the shower off and have some toast or something."

He looked at me and rolled his eyes.

"Jared, I mean it. Why won't you listen to me? Who is smarter here, me or you? How many times have I proven it?" I said, exasperated.

"Mom!" he said, face earnest, one hand holding closed the towel at his waist and the other gesticulating meaningfully, "You are the smarter one. That's indisputable at this point. But whereas you are pretty much plateauing where that's concerned, I, on the other hand, am gaining in smartness as I age. You, eventually, will inevitably decline. So, there will come a time in the not-so-distant future when I will be the smarter one of the two of us. Right now, though, I'm letting you have that. So why can't you just accept it and leave it at that?" He turned his palm upward and shrugged, eyebrows uplifted questioningly.

I still can't remember what happened after that.