‘Are you sure about this, Ma?’ Stewie asked his mother as she laid out a plate of biscuits on the table.
‘Of course I’m sure,’ she said, lowering herself into the seat opposite him with a grimace. ‘How’s Tina and the girls?’
‘Yeah, they’re great, Ma,’ Stewie said quickly, frowning at the piece of paper in front of him. ‘But we still gotta talk about this.’
‘What’s to talk about?’ she threw her hands up. ‘Have a biscuit, you’re looking thin.’
‘I’m not—stop trying to change the subject!’ he frowned. ‘I’m worried that you haven’t considered the price of getting a bathtub modification for seniors. In Sydney, too!’
‘What’s Sydney got to do with it?’ she asked, reaching over and putting a biscuit on a plate for him.
‘Don’t things get more expensive closer to the city?’
‘Where there’s more businesses competing in the market, applying a downward pressure to the consumer market?’ she frowned. ‘Is Tina not feeding you?’
‘I do the cooking, actually,’ Stewie said, gruffly. ‘And when did you get a fancy-pants economics degree?’
‘I have the internet,’ she shrugged. ‘And I got sick of losing at online poker.’
‘So you… wait, do you legit have an economics degree, Ma?’
‘No, stupid,’ she scolded him, nabbing a biscuit off the plate. ‘It’s a diploma. Easy stuff.’
He stared at her, shocked, mouth open, then quickly closed it once he saw her eyeing off a biscuit to shove in his maw.
‘Anyway,’ she said, dusting her hands of crumbs and leaning backwards. ‘Point is, I know they’re very affordable bath modifications, and they’ll help your poor, abandoned mother out a lot.’
‘You’re not abandoned, Ma,’ Stewie rolled his eyes. ‘Your kids just moved out. Hell, Stevie is four doors down!’
‘And yet nobody ever visits,’ she shook her head. ‘Except to tell me how to spend my money.’
Stewie took in a deep breath through his nose.
‘Great biscuits, Ma,’ he eventually sighed, taking another one off the plate.
‘I know,’ she grinned.