When I was a freshman in high school, a friend of mine inadvertently let slip a secret about a book I was reading. Even though now I can hardly remember what the big plot secret was (I think it had something to do with the fact that Merlin was actually Arthur’s second cousin, or something like that), at the time I was pretty upset. So upset that when later that year I got the chance to ruin “The Return of the Jedi,” for her, I didn’t hesitate—as soon as I got home from the movie theater I sprinted over to the phone, called her house, and, when her answering machine clicked on, gleefully chortled out: “Leia is Luke’s SISTER!”
Unfortunately for me, however, (or rather, fortunately for her), it’s somewhat impossible to enunciate clearly while “chortling,” and so my triumph (and my message) was somewhat muted. Or nonexistent, actually: she told me that her entire family—including her cute older brother—had gathered around the answering machine to try and decipher my garbled message. They’d only given up when it had become time for them to leave for—you guessed it—“The Return of the Jedi.” By the way, she added, exactly what had I been trying to tell her, anyway?
Nothing.
Still, even though my “big reveal” didn’t work out very well that time, it did give me a taste for the potential of the whole thing. In fact, the experience of almost getting to be the person who broke a big piece of news was so exhilarating that I vowed that next time around I would be the person to do it. I would be the detective who called the entire dinner party together and then screamed “It was Leia’s butler’s second cousin that did it!” (Or something like that.)
And the thing is, frequently, I am. My kids learned early on not to bother me with trivial information like who got the high sore on the spelling test—they know that I want to know the dirt: who got sent to the principal’s office, who threw up in the middle of art class, who brought nothing but a can of beans for lunch (oh wait—that was my kid). Anyway, they know that I want to know the Big Secrets, so that later, when I’m talking to the appropriate mothers, I can make the Big Reveal.
Which makes it even odder that they, who know me the best, now accuse me of being the opposite of the Big Revealer: they accuse me of being the Secret Keeper. It’s true: lately they’ve been acting like I’m some sort of mid-level Freemason, waiting for the rest of them to learn the secret handshake and the contents of the twelve rooms of Ishtar before I can share the temple wisdom. Of course, they don’t come right out and say all of that; instead, they sit in the living room and complain.
“A bass lesson? Today? Why didn’t you tell me—I would have practiced.”
Or “Why didn’t you tell me my Science Project was due this week? Now it’s going to be late.”
Obviously the real problem is that my family has not yet discovered the mystical source of all my power, the all-seeing, all-knowing oracle that I consult on a daily basis to find out what lies ahead. I’m not sure what other people call it, but my people (mothers, that is), call it a calendar (KAL-en-dur).
Yep: who knew that all I needed to become the Ultimate Big Revealer of All time was a calendar? Because when you have a calendar, all secrets are revealed. Well, maybe not all secrets. You do know that you have a dentist appointment—you just don’t know that the dentist is actually Princess Leia’s second cousin. For that, you still have to see the movie.