When I set out to write a murder mystery manuscript, it never occurred to me that doing so might negatively affect the way that my daughter describes me to her friends. I thought, perhaps, she might say something to the effect of, "Oh my mom? Well, she writes murder mysteries." But alas, no.
In the midst of performing my parental obligations of the daily carpool run, my daughter asked if we could give one of her friends a ride home from school. Absolutely. Be happy to. (Thus satisfying the requirements for POSIL#1 (Parental Obligation Self-Imposed Law or POSIL): always say yes, whenever humanly possible, when my daughter asks for something in front of one of her friends.
I immediately performed the second self-imposed law of my parental obligations (POSIL#2) when driving my teenager and her friends around. (*A quick side-bar: My daughter has never asked me to do these things, but I once was a teenager -- albeit a million, billion years ago -- and I should like to consider myself a "cool" and "awesome" mom who is so considerate as to think of these things ahead of time.)
So, in accordance to POSIL#2, I turned down the music, vowed not to speak unless I was spoken to, and basically pretended like I don't exist. Of course every time I invoke POSIL#2, I giggle, because, alas, I immediately get Harry Potter's voice in my head, responding to his Uncle Vernon about hiding upstairs in his bedroom when Uncle Vernon's boss comes over, promising not to make any noise, and pretending he doesn't exist. But I digress.
Normally when I pull out of the carpool lane, I stifle my giggles, and eavesdrop as loudly as I can to my daughter's intriguing conversations. I actually learn most about what goes on in my daughter's life when she talks to her friends in the back of the car. When it's just to the two of us, I typically get answers like, "fine," or "some," or "not much." I get the juicy gossip and interesting information like who is asking whom to the winter formal when and only when she's willing to share, if she's had a decent day, isn't too tired, has had enough to eat, or (because those things are so rare these days), when she has a friend with her in the car.
But on this particular afternoon I had been a bit distracted, having just finished a difficult scene in my manuscript. I wasn't really following their conversation, and had truly tuned them out. My daughter, ever the observer, was surprised by my lack of curiosity in her conversation with her friend (because let's be honest, I have never actually been able to succeed in POSIL#2. I inevitably interrupt her conversations with her friends, ask what turn out to be embarrassing questions, and inevitably embarrass my daughter -- which truly is the last thing I want to do.). She asked me how my writing had gone that day. Absentmindedly (because my brain was still focused on my manuscript, and really not on anything else -- as I'm sure those of you who write and are forced into a PO that disrupts and disturbs your writing flow are keen to understand), I told her that I killed three people that afternoon. Two of which I knew about. The other one was a complete surprise.
An odd, uncomfortable silence followed. Silence, when there are more than two of us in the car, is a rare event. I turned my head to figure out if I could see what was wrong when I noticed the look of pure horror on my daughter's friend's face. Confused, I turned to look at my daughter, trying to get an explanation. Her brick red cheeks screamed mortification. My daughter cleared her throat and croaked, "Um, my mom writes murder mysteries for a living. I don't think she actually killed anyone today."
Needless to say, her friend hasn't asked for a ride home since then. And I'd like to think that I'll do my best to stick with POSIL#2 in the future.
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