Realizing what might be going on, Mark knew that the situation he faced couldn’t be controlled. Even if this had no connection to the figure from earlier, Mark couldn’t do anything to revert things back to normal. As a result, Mark understood that moving forward he’d have to start acting the part unless he wanted things to get worse.
Mark had no clue how to start living the life of his mother but he didn’t have to as he was sort of thrown into the action. While thinking about things, Mark began to smell something burning. The strong odor was enough to snap him out of his train of thought as Mark’s attention was turned to the oven. At the top of the door, smoke could be seen leaking out as Mark frantically ran to grab oven mitts and opened the door. Opening the door, the smoke released itself as Mark prayed that dinner wasn’t screwed up. Lucky for him, the smoke wasn’t caused from the food burning as instead some grease had leaked onto the bottom of the oven and began to burn.
Mark felt like he was in for a wild ride as his first introduction to becoming his mother was almost burning dinner. Quickly, Mark pulled out the tray to inspect the food. It seemed his mother was making sausage which at this point looked fairly well cooked. Mark had no clue how to cook as he sort of began to wing it, piecing together the meal that Mary was preparing before the swap.
Mark threw some pasta into a pot that already was filled with water. He noticed that the water was completely room temperature. Mark wasn’t a genius but knew that he’d need to boil the water to cook the pasta. He turned on the burner as he noticed the second burner already had a pot on it. Glancing inside, he noticed it was filled with red tomato sauce. Mark dipped a finger in it to get a taste, relieved that the sauce was warm and tasted just like how Mary’s sauce always tasted.
“Thank god mom was almost done with dinner. I’d be screwed if I had to start from scratch,” Mark thought to himself as the only thing that he had to prepare was the pasta. As the water boiled and began to cook the pasta, Mark shifted his focus to getting the food onto plates to serve it. He dumped the sausage onto a big plate and found a bowl to dump the tomato sauce into. When he felt like the pasta was done, Mark dumped the pot into a strainer. Once dry, the pasta was moved into another bowl as Mark inspected his work. It was clear that his presentation was nothing like his mother’s was normally but it wasn’t half bad considering the circumstances of the swap.
The next part made Mark a tad excited as now he was given the opportunity to do something he’d never done. With the food on the table, it was time to gather up everyone.
“Diner time!” Mark shouted as his voice echoed throughout the house. He couldn’t help but smile as yelling for dinner was always something that his mother did most nights. With that, Mark went in the dining room and immediately began to walk towards his own chair. Pulling it out, Mark noticed Mary was the first one to arrive for dinner.
“I know I’m your favorite but you don’t have to pull my seat out,” Mary joked as she walked over to Mark, laughing as she did so. Mark began to blush as he couldn’t believe his mother was talking and even acting like Mark. She took his seat as Mark realized he’d have to sit where she would normally sit. Mark moved to the one end of the table as everyone else began to pour into the room and take their seats.
Sitting across from Mark was his father, Tim, who gave Mark an unexpected kiss on the forehead when he walked into the dining room. To Mark’s right was Mary who still was dressed in Mark’s clothes and acting just like him. To the left of Mark was his two younger siblings, Carly and Ben. Ben was the youngest in the family as he was only 4 years old. He sat closer to Tim while Carly sat closer to Mark. Carly was the middle child as she was 11 years old, dead in the middle between Mark and Ben in age.
As everyone sat at the table as Mark watched closely, waiting for someone at the table to say or even notice something different about him or Mary. That moment never came as instead the only changes that occurred was how each member of the family interacted with them. As they ate, Carly and Ben spoke to Mark like they would with Mary, talking about their days at school and pointless nonsense. Meanwhile, the two would bicker with Mary who would fight right back, just like how Mark would normally. They acted nothing like they would normally as their interactions were more like how siblings interacted and not children interacting with a parent. This wasn’t even the worst relationship at the table as the most drastic change in behavior came with Tim.
Sitting across from each other, it was easy for Tim to stare and make eye contact with Mark. This wouldn’t be weird on paper but the way in which Tim was staring was clear what he was thinking. Instead of seeing Mark like a son, Tim was staring at Mark like he was his wife. Technically, that statement was true as Tim didn’t know anything about a life swap. He simply saw his wife sitting across from him, not his teenage son. Mark expected such behavior to rub his mother the wrong way but she didn’t seem bothered in the slightest. She barely looked at Tim and he barely looked at her. It was strange but made sense as all of this began to paint a picture for Mark as to what this new reality looked like.
