It was about 5:30 PM when I finally got home. I walked to the kitchen to give mom the paper bag of rubber stoppers.

“Thank you darling, Audrey owes you one!” she said to me as she was chopping onions. 

“Mom, stop trying to talk cool, you’re 45! It’s… unnatural.”

“That’s no way to speak your mother, young man,” she replied as she took the paper bag from me.

She opened it up and said, “Here sweetie, you take these black ones.”

“What am I going to do with rubber stoppers, mom?”

“If your chair upstairs is scratching the floor then…”

“How about my $10, mom?”

“Oh…Um…you’ll have to wait ‘til tomorrow. I have to go the bank and get a few dollar bills.”

“C’mon mom…”

“Don’t c’mon with me, Andrew. Now go tidy up, we’re having liver and onions tonight.”

“What? Mom, you know I hate liver and onions!”

“Audrey loves liver and onions. She has to travel to a big competition coming up tomorrow, think of her for once.”

I walked to the bathroom and mumbled, “But you never think about me,” to myself.

I turned on the faucet and watched the hot water run for about 10 seconds. My brain felt numb because of today: school, the weird store, the crazy gypsy lady, the dumb rubber stoppers, now this.

Right as I was about to wash my hands, I realized that I was holding on to the black rubber stoppers this whole time. Part of me just wanted to throw the bag in the dust bin, but another part of me remembered the crazy things it did to my arm. I turned off the faucet and just stared at the little black pads for a little while longer. The packet didn’t have any instructions or any labels on them. It was just a clear plastic packet. I just remembered that the lady wrote the command with pencil, stuck it on me, and I obeyed her out of my own will.

My eye glanced to my right and saw mom chopping up the onions. An idea flashed into my head: could I possibly use these things to make mom cook hamburgers instead for dinner? It sounds absurd, I know, but after a day like this, I wanted to choose what we were having for dinner.

I snuck into Dad’s office, pulled out a pencil, drew out one of the stoppers from the packet, and wrote, “I will cook burgers for dinner” on it. I slowly crept into the kitchen, quietly snuck up right behind Mom, held my breath, and quickly smacked the controller on the back of her neck.

She turned around and gave me a look like she was both confused and angry at the same time.

“Andy, what on earth are you doing?” she said as she pulled off the controller from her back. She held it between her fingers and said, “Andy, a rubber stopper, on me? Of all the pranks you could’ve done, this has got to be the –“

Mom suddenly stopped midsentence and her body froze. We stood still for a few seconds. I panicked for a little bit because I thought I killed her for a moment! Then, her hand finally moved. Her fingers dropped the stopper and she then turned back around, grabbed the chopping block with onions and then threw them into the trash. She then darted to the fridge, pulled out a box of beef patties and a skillet, and began flipping patties into the air. I was so amazed! I have never seen her cook this way before. She was chopping lettuce and tomatoes like a master chef and she managed to flip a burger and made it land right onto a hamburger bun!

After four plates were set on the table, she yelled, “Dinner’s ready!”

I’m so impressed that I actually started applauding for Mom! Her face quickly changed from a vibrant smile to a confused frown.

“What happened?” she immediately asked.

“Don’t you remember, Mom? You made burgers for dinner. Thanks!” I answered her.

“No… I don’t remember anything. Hamburgers? I was cooking liver and onions!”

Dad and Audrey walked into the dining room.

“Evening, Andrew! Evening, Honey! Ooh, hamburgers! What a treat!”

I guess Mom decided not to worry about it after she saw how happy it made Dad. Audrey wasn’t too happy, but she didn’t complain either. After a day like this, I was just really happy to be having the best hamburger dinner in the world!