I return home exhausted, playing lego the whole day is way too tiring. Oh, and I guess reading some pesky documents contributed to this fatigue.

I quickly grab me a dinner lunchbox and drop on my sofa chair to devour it.

Amy is watching a soap opera as usual, paying me little heed. Mother isn’t in sight, probably in her room.

While I speculate about her whereabouts, I hear a familiar ringtone resounding across the hallway. Mother shortly answers it and starts talking in her loud voice, which can be pierce through walls.

"Yes, I'm ready. When will you be arriving? Okay, then pass by that bridge and turn right at the first crossroad. Yes, okay. Bye."

She hangs the call and her steps approach the living room. Based on how she navigated someone toward our house, I can already tell where she is heading.

"How do I look?"

Mother walks into the living room, wearing a flashy red dress.

"Smokin’.'"

Amy gives a thumb up and winks. Since she received an opinion, I ignore the scene and focus on my food.

"What do you think, Nicky?"

"Ugh..."

I had a feeling this was coming.

"Looks fine, I guess?"

"Oh c'mon, give me your opinion as a man."

Mother insists with a commanding voice.

What does she want from me? I don't care about her getup...

"I dunno, it looks fine."

I shrug without interest. I'm definitely not the guy to ask about fashion choices.

Mother shortly gives up after seeing my indifference. It's the usual scenario, all is well that ends well.

"Mom, are you, Iike, meeting that electrician guy again?"

Amy asks with nosy curiosity. This is one of few subjects which she finds more interesting than her soap operas; a rare sight.

"Yeah, I do."

"Didn't you say that he's financially unstable and stuff?"

"It's true. But he knows how to treat a woman, so I can enjoy this relationship for a while."

As I suspected, mother is going on another date today.

She's already 43 years old, I'm not sure whether she’s admirable or foolish for pursuing relationships through dating sites at this age. Especially after being sharply stung in the past and ending up with two children on her lone back.

"Gotta run, please lock the door!"

Mother quickly runs toward the door, disappearing from my line of sight.

The door quickly opens and then closes. As she often enjoys doing, she leaves the burden of locking the door to someone else; she's such a witch on this subject.

I finish dinner and lock the door on my way to the kitchen. It's a given that I couldn't count on Amy to raise her lazy ass from the sofa to do it.

After finishing dishes, I suddenly remember Lily and the fact that I need to bring more Lego for her.

I could easily grab one of the countless generic plastic bags. However, somewhere in this very kitchen hide... the elusive legendary plastic bags!

After using it yesterday, I realized that a sturdier bag is much more comfortable for carrying tons of Lego. Now that I have tasted the luxury of this efficiency, it's difficult for me to return to the primitive stone age of normal plastic bags.

Nay, it MUST be one of these legendary bags! No other bag will do!

I begin my search by randomly hitting every suspicious shelf in the kitchen.

"Grr..."

After roughly five minutes of throughout searching, I find only unfamiliar crap which I didn't even know we own.

"Whatcha doin? Searching for snacks or something?"

Amy walks into the kitchen and opens the refrigerator.

"Say, do you know where she keeps these superior plastic bags?"

"Huh? Like, what superior bags?"

She looks at me with a raised eyebrow while pouring coke into a cup.

"Figured..."

It's hopeless, only mother knows where she hides stuff in this house. Me and Amy are no more than little hamsters in mother’s laboratory.

There’s no choice but to give up on the super bags for today.

《Nick obtained a Normal Plastic Bag》

I return to my room and start pouring lego into the generic, normal, common and frail plastic bag. There’s only so much I can fit inside one such a bag, therefore I brought three of these along.

“Whatcha doing? You’re noisy and stuff.”

“Ugh...”

Right, I forgot to close the door...

Amy enters my room and checks what I’m up to, like a certain nosy mother from yesterday.

“Are you, like, still playing with this garbage at your age?”

G-garbage!? How does she dare to badmouth the toy which owned my childhood!?

“What do you care.”

I continue to sweep lego into the plastic bag, trying to fish mainly for 2x1 bricks.

“Do you, like, need it for something?”

“Yeah, I need to teach Lily how to use lego- ugh.”

My throat is petrified.

Crap!

Crap crap crap crap!!!

“Lily? Who’s that?”

She approaches me from behind and scans me with glinting curiosity.

“T-t-that’s...”

Damn, of all people to blubber this secret to...!

Should I just admit that I have a cute kid who is 100 times more adorable than Amy ever was? As much as I’d like to shove such a bizarre fact into her face, I can’t possibly reveal this.

“I-it’s, well... a robot, basically.”

“Huh?”

Her face twists into a puzzled expression.

“I-it’s a model name. It’s a robot which can be taught all sort of stuff, so I teach it how to play lego.”

I spout all of that rapidly and nervously, hopefully she falls for it. She looks at me for a few moments, then gives an indifferent reaction.

“So it’s for work.”

“Yeah.”

Did she buy it? Did she!? I can’t tell from her expression alone.

“I feel really sad for that robot.”

“Huh?”

“Like, of all the groovy things you could teach it, you chose this garbage? If I were that robot, I’d be totally pissed off and stuff.”

Of course you would, because you don’t even understand how to handle Lego.

... and neither does Lily, now that I think about it. Is Amy trying to imply that I’m forcing the Lego on Lily?

B-but my daughter said that she wants to play! ...only because it’d make me happy. Damn.

“What would you teach the robot then?”

“Like, useful stuff? Cooking, house cleaning and all that.”

“How would you teach her something like that? You can’t even do any of these yourself.”

“... tch, whatever.”

She waves her hand with rejection, as if driving away an annoying pest. She then leaves the room without uttering a word.

Did I touch a sore spot? I totally did, didn’t I? Muhaha, that’s what you get for insulting my childhood drugs! Feel the wrath of the almighty lego!

After thoroughly stuffing the plastic bags with Lego, I put them inside my backpack. Sadly, I manage to fit only two of the three bags inside.

Though the operation went smoothly, Amy’s words are weighing on my mind.

Amy hated lego as a kid because she was a complete failure in it. It might be a little bratty attitude, but in general people find it difficult to enjoy activities in which they suck.

What about Lily then?

She had trouble with both word chain and lego. Shouldn’t she dislike these? Shouldn’t she prefer an activity which plays to her strengths?

I haven’t given that any thought before.

Am I... forcing my own preferences on her? Same as I did with Amy when she was smaller?

This makes me a horrible father.