Truth is Stranger than Fiction

This weekend has breathed new meaning into the phrase, "Truth is stranger than fiction." To begin with, The Man had gotten lazy about some things and the situation was getting worse, despite my modeling the appropriate behaviors and giving gentle hints. I refuse to nag, but he was not responding in the appropriate manner to gentle attempts at correcting his behavior, so Friday morning I sat him down and discussed the problem with him in a very businesslike manner giving him graphic detail of my long-standing dissatisfaction. When I said my piece, he said (are you sitting down?), "You're right. I'm sorry," all in the same breath. Then he set about making it right and actually giving me more than what I asked. I'm still stunned.

If that wasn't weird enough, Saturday morning, The Girl came to me and told me of a good friend (16) who met a 19-20 year old Marine a few weeks ago. They had been text messaging and she said she was in love with him and was planning to sneak out of her house Valentine's weekend to go give him her virginity. Now I'm not the abstinence queen, nor have I ever preached abstinence before marriage et cetera, but The Girl was really freaked out - not necessarily because her friend was going to have sex, but that she's underage and the guy will probably bail as soon as he gets what he wants - and what if she gets pregnant? Then what? The Girl said she'd feel somewhat responsible if her friend got pregnant or worse and she knew all along what her friend was planning. "Besides," she said, "If somebody has to sneak off to do something, that's a really good sign that maybe they shouldn't be doing whatever they're sneaking off to do." I told her that if it was that important to her that maybe she should talk to the girl's parents. She said she didn't know how to do it and asked me if I would. I pointed out that she was running the risk of ruining their friendship, that her friend might not ever trust her again, and it could go all over the school that she's a snitch. Still, she was willing to take that risk in her friend's best interest because she didn't want her friend to get hurt.

So I got in touch with the mom. You know going into some conversations that whatever news you have to give is going to be so bad that the only way to tell it is to just tell it. Good thing that's part of what they teach you in shrink school. I'd hope that someone would be kind enough to give me a heads up if it were The Girl. I asked her to go easy on her daughter because we all know how slick guys can be and asked her not to tell that my daughter was the one to break confidence. I guess she didn't hear that part because it wasn't 20 minutes before The Girl was getting a slew of text messages saying, "I thought you were my friend, how could you do this?" et cetera. I have to hand it to her though. The Girl stuck to her guns and explained to her friend that a real friend wouldn't let her do something that stupid. This from a girl who says she never wants to go into psychology, haha.

When I asked if she'd heard from her friend this morning she said, "Oh she's not mad at me anymore. In fact she thanked me." Again, I'm stunned.

Oh, and over 5,000 visits already? Gee thanks y'all!