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A few weeks ago someone asked me how long I had been writing this column.

“A while…” I said, trying to look mysterious and enigmatic. Of course they replied with a blank stare, and who can blame them? After all, Twilight jokes are pretty much passe these days. But the truth is I wasn’t really trying to channel Edward: I honestly didn’t remember. And so when I got home I looked in my files (read: dug through the pile of crap on top of my desk) and got the answer. As of last May I have been writing this column for ten years.

Damn. That would have been a good excuse for a party. Or at least a bottle of fancy liquor. Oh well, I was always crap at anniversaries: whenever someone asks me how old I am I always have to do the math in my head, which ends up making me look like I’m trying to decide exactly how much I’m going to lie. Which is all kinds of ridiculous, because I never have to think about how much I’m going to lie—the answer is always the same: a lot.

Anyway, when I started this column I was writing about what it was like to live with an infant and a kindergartener. I wrote about laundry and temper tantrums. Now, ten years later, I’m writing about living with two teenagers, and I’m writing about… um, yeah, still writing about laundry and temper tantrums. The laundry is no less disgusting, and the temper tantrums are more HBO and less Disney Channel, but other than that things are remarkably similar.

And ten years from now? Well, hopefully I won’t be writing about laundry anymore (because we’ll all be living in the future, and there will be Spandex Jackets For Everyone), and hopefully the temper tantrums won’t have landed anyone in jail, but I’m pretty sure that I’ll still be writing about my children. Because no matter how old they get they’ll still be my children. Which means that they will still frustrate me, and amuse me, and horrify me, and impress me, at least once a week, and all I really need is one good story a week to make a column, you know?

If my mother wrote her own column (which I’m sure she could—all of the Poe women have wicked senses of humor) then I’m sure she would feel the same way; I’m sure that I still do something frustrating enough every week to inspire at least 645 words. And I probably always will. I remember when Clementine was born there was a mother and daughter who lived on our block who were 95 and 75 respectively, and they still bickered. And I’m also sure that if the 95-year-old had been given the space she could have written an awesome column about the trials of having septuagenarian offspring.

The idea that my children will ever be old enough for me not to have something to say about them is kind of like saying that one day they will be old enough not to need my (unasked for) advice, and that’s just ridiculous.

Of course, as my children get older it does get harder to write the really embarrassing stuff about them. For one thing, they can read now, and if they ever bothered to read my column they would catch me doing it. For another, the embarrassing stuff that teenagers do is less along the lines of “Kids Say the Darnedest Things,” and more like “You do know that’s still illegal in Utah, right?” Besides, how can I lecture them about keeping their incriminating photos off of Facebook if I then turn around and put a detailed description of those same incriminating acts on my own website?

At least the hypothetical 95-year-old columnist never had to worry about that. Probably.

My husband collects bottle openers—the tackier the better. And so of course my daughter, Clementine, decided to find him a tacky Irish bottle opener when she was in Dublin last week. And since everyone knows that the best place to get truly tacky stuff is tourist shops, that’s where she went. (I assume she just searched until she found the place that most looked like someone had gutted a family of leprechauns inside.)

Having thus located the perfect store, I think she must have taken her time finding the Very Tackiest Bottle Opener in All of Ireland, because she was there long enough to hear “Whisky in the Jar” several times at least. Clementine is not the biggest fan of traditional music, and so it was in sympathy that she asked the poor shop boy on her way out, “So, how many times have you heard this song?”

In the most morose tone she had heard in all her time in Ireland he replied, “It’s on a loop.”

Ouch. That’s worse than the Christmas music mall workers have to endure. I mean, even as long as the Christmas season is, it does end eventually. Ireland, however, never stops being Ireland. I’ll bet if that poor guy walked into a bar in Dublin and someone started playing “Whisky in the Jar” there would be literal bloodshed.

Clementine’s story reminded me of the time I worked at Snowbowl back in the 80s, back when they still had a shuttle bus to haul people up and down the mountain. Some marketing genius had figured out that the drive up and down Snowbowl Road was the perfect opportunity to subject skiers to a long ad touting the glories of Snowbowl (never mind the fact that if they were on the bus they were pretty much already committed to skiing at Snowbowl). Not to be too obnoxious about it, they carefully layered the Snowbowl ads in between “popular” songs like “Money For Nothing” and “Back in the High Life” (remember, it was the 80s.) Altogether, there were about four songs and four ads during the seven mile drive up and then back down the mountain. Nothing too obnoxious, really, considering the fact that the skiers only ever had to hear it twice a day.

But the bus drivers—oh, the poor bus drivers. They had to hear those songs and ads dozens of times each day, five days a week. In the end some of them just gave up and covered up the speakers. Others gouged out the Snowbowl approved compilation and replaced it with their own tapes, one of the best being a twenty minute loop of “Jahhhhh Love…Ja-ah-ah Love.” Of course my favorite was the one who played Jane’s Addiction at top volume at the end of the day while gunning it back to the bus barn. To this day I can’t hear “Been Caught Stealing” without remembering what it feels like to go into a power slide on Snowbowl Road.

The point is, none of us react well to being forced to listen to the same thing over and over. Which is why I don’t understand how the people who are responsible for making those “Kid Bop” CDs haven’t had to be placed in protective custody yet. Or why groups such as “The Wiggles” don’t have to have plastic surgery at the end of their careers.

Maybe, however, karma is more vindictive than we think. Maybe Christmas mall workers subjected their parents to nonstop Teletubbies, and maybe the Snowbowl bus drivers had played “Another Brick in the Wall” over and over again during a seventh grade field trip (oh wait a minute: that was me).

And the Dublin shop boy? I don’t even want to think about what sin would deserve a punishment like that.

I really thought I had avoided it.

By the time my daughter Clementine started to show any interest in anything even vaguely resembling make-up she was already of the firm opinion that I didn’t know anything about anything, and so my advice on the subject was neither welcome nor solicited. Which was fine with me, because, on this at least, she was right. What I know about make-up could fill a small thimble and still leave plenty of room for the thumb. And so, yeah, I was pretty psyched when Clementine decided that she was going to figure all of that stuff out on her own, and then did. I assumed that meant I was off the hook.

What I didn’t figure on, however, was my son, Clyde.

Don’t get me wrong. Clyde isn’t going through his Billie Jo Armstrong phase or anything. He’s not wearing guyliner. (Although guyliner is actually kind of hot.) He’s not signing up for mani-pedis. (Although I kind of wish he would—boy feet are disgusting.) No, it’s worse than all that. Clyde is a dancer, and, apparently, dancers need to wear make-up when they are on stage. Make-up that I’m expected to know something about.

When he brought home the list of make-up products that he would be required not only to own, but apply before his upcoming performance I was completely lost. Out of the eight items on the list I only recognized two—and I thought they were both the same thing. I mean, mascara and eyeliner are both black, and they both come in tubes, right? They both get stuck in your eye, don’t they? Why would they be two different things? And yet, apparently, they are.

At one point in my life I knew people who understood make-up. I don’t know if I cut them out of my life or they cut me, but in any case it means that these days all of my friends have about as much experience with make-up as I do. Well, actually, probably a little more, since they all at least used to wear it in high school. I didn’t even have that—the first (and only) time I tried to put make-up on I was reminded of my deep-seated fear of clowns, and that was it for me. Not that having friends with lots of make-up experience would help that much, anyway, unless said make-up experience included putting make-up on twelve-year-old boys. (And if that is the case then I want to know why they’ve been keeping all of the really good stories to themselves).

And I know that, in the grand scheme of things, I have gotten off incredibly lucky: I see what the parents of the female dancers have to go through, with not only make-up but hair, and I realize full well that things could be worse. Much worse. As in: time to break down and finally buy a hairbrush, worse.

I suppose that this really isn’t any different from the time Clyde tried to play hockey and I was confronted with a pile of pads taller than he was and told to “get him suited up.” And in fact, at least with make-up I know that it all goes on the face—some of that hockey gear I still wonder which body part it was supposed to protect. Which is why, in the end, I took the same approach to Clyde’s hockey gear as I eventually did with his make-up: I took a long, calming breath, sorted everything into different piles, and then… left.

Some other mother got Clyde dressed for hockey, and I’m sure some other mother will help Clyde with his make-up as well. I know, I’m a coward, but what can I say: it works for me.

By the time this column appears, my daughter, Clementine, will have been traveling around Europe for the last five days.

On her own.

This means that by the time this column appears I will be somewhere in between moderately and completely freaking out.

Not freaking out at all will not be an option.

Don’t get me wrong. I won’t be freaking out because I’m afraid that Clementine is going to be snatched up in some kind of white slave ring straight out of Taken. I have been to Europe enough times myself to know that the version of Europe that exists in Taken (and movies like it) is only familiar to Americans who have never held a passport. (Which, unfortunately, describes most Americans. Sarah Palin really wasn’t an exception.) Of course, to be fair, there is an equally bizarre version of America that is only familiar to some Europeans as well. (Clementine has already been asked several times if she really owns a gun. No, she really doesn’t).

I also won’t be freaking out because I think that Clementine is not going to be able to handle all of the logistics of getting on the right bus, then the right ferry, then the right train, because, frankly, I already know that she is going to screw up at least once. Which is okay: I mean, it’s not like I haven’t gotten on the wrong bus plenty of times myself, and the good thing about going down the wrong road is that you can always go back, which is, perhaps, an even better lesson to learn than how to go down the right road in the first place.

No. I’ll be freaking out because I’m a mom, and that’s what we do. Even when we pretend we’re not.

What, you didn’t think we really let you walk to school on your own that first time, did you? Or even your first three times? Of course not: we were the ones following along a block behind, in the hat and dark glasses. The one who made sure you really did look both ways (twice!) before crossing the street, and didn’t jump into the first beat up panel van with “Free Candey” spray-painted on the side of it.

Yes, of course we trusted you. It’s just… it’s just… a mom thing. We can’t help it.

And yet, despite all of that, I really am sure that Clementine will be fine—and not in spite of being a solo traveler, either, but because of it. This is because, as someone who also spent some of her youth traveling alone I am intimately aware of the fact that a young girl traveling on her own has all sorts of advantages that other travelers don’t. And no, I don’t mean advantages like that. I mean that since there are few things less threatening than a single female traveler people will practically come out of the woodwork to help you. Which is good, because when you travel, you always need help. It doesn’t matter how badass you were in your previous, non-traveling life: as a traveler, you are always kind of helpless.

And realizing that you are now kind of helpless is kind of horrifying, and kind of awful, and kind of wonderful, all at the same time. It is, in other words, the very best part about traveling.

Because, when it comes right down to it, the important thing about travel isn’t what you see, or who you meet, but who you become.

That, of course, and the fact that if you are doing it just right you get to make your mother moderately freak out.

The other day I came home from grocery shopping, and when I opened the cabinet to put away my purchases I ran into a small problem: it seemed that there was already a can of refried beans in the spot where I wanted to put my new can of refried beans. It wasn’t really that big of a deal, though: I would just put the new refried beans where I usually put the—huh, more refried beans. Well, what about over—nope, nope, more refried beans there, too. I wandered around the kitchen for a while, but every spot I could think of was already filled with, you guessed it, refried beans. It was then that I came to two conclusions: one, that I really needed to start making a shopping list, and two, I desperately needed to organize my kitchen cabinets.

The first was never going to happen (by the time I went back to the store all of my good intentions would have turned into yet another can of refried beans) but the second one was actually doable, so I set about pulling everything out of my cabinets and piling it on the kitchen counters to organize. It was at this point that my son, Clyde, wandered in and started examining everything. Along with the wall of refried beans there was also at least ten different kinds of tomato product (stewed, diced, whole, paste, chopped, sauce, with garlic, with onion, with green chili, etc.) four different kinds of oatmeal, and no less than seven bottles of salad dressing. What he went for, however, was the cous cous.

It was in one of those thin plastic bags they give you in the bulk department. And instead of a twist tie, it was simply knotted loosely at the top. The bag looked pretty old, and if I had had to make a bet I would have guessed that there was probably less than a 10% chance it didn’t have a hole in it. Which is why I tensed up when Clyde started tossing it from one hand to the other.

“Just, just, put it DOWN,” I said, my hands full of refried beans.

“Why?” he asked me.

Because, I wanted to say, there are only two possible outcomes to playing with that old bag of cous cous. One was that nothing would happen at all. And the other was that something would. In the first instance everything would stay the same: there would neither be a positive, or a negative effect. In the second, though, there was only one possibility, and that was the possibility that something bad would happen. How did I know it would be bad? Because there was no scenario I could imagine that involved the cous cous leaving the bag that was not bad. None.

There was absolutely no chance of a cous cous fairy pouring out and granting our wishes, no chance of a magical cous cous garden growing in my kitchen, and no chance of the cous cous all floating out of the bag and over to the trash. None. Zip. Nada. The only thing that could possibly happen was that the cous cous would spill on the floor and that I would get pissed.

Why then, I wondered, given the choice between nothing happening and something bad happening, would Clyde insist upon going for the latter? What could possibly be the reasoning behind such an act? Of course, that’s when my husband wandered in the kitchen, tossing his heavy key ring up into the air and then catching it again—or not. And suddenly I understood.

Well, at least I understood the fact that boys were something I was never going to understand at all. That, and that there really is such a thing as too many cans of refried beans.

Neither one of my children ever lost their first tooth before they were seven years old. In a way this was good, because it almost completely eliminated the need for us to have the Tooth Fairy in our house. (Also, Clementine was born with the cynicism of a 70-year-old man, and therefore didn’t believe in any of that stuff anyway. And Clyde—well, Clyde has Clementine for an older sister, so while in ordinary circumstance he would probably still be clapping his hands and saying, “I believe! I believe!” well into his twenties, he, too, stopped believing at around age five.)

Now while there are probably a great many parents out there who are envious of the fact that I never had to sneak into anyone’s room in the middle of the night and fumble around underneath a pillow for cast-off body parts (thank god the idea of a Toenail Clipping Fairy never caught on), what they don’t realize is that this small benefit is completely negated by the fact that my children are still shedding their baby teeth well into their teens. And a teen with a loose tooth is a much crankier creature than any five-year-old could ever be.

I was reminded of that a few years ago when me and my family had finally come to the end of what might just have been The Most Stressful Travel Day of All Time. Not only did we have to carry our bags (and our children’s bags, because, hey, why would they ever carry their own bags when they have us around?) across a literal mile of trash-strewn farmland, we then had to stand in line for a crowded bus that would take us to a crowded train station where we would get on a crowded train that would take us to London, where we would walk for blocks and blocks in the wrong direction before finally turning around and finding our hostel because, apparently, my sense of direction is absolute crap when I don’t have the San Francisco Peaks to point me in the right direction.

Once at the hostel, after my husband and I tried to cram as much filthy clothing as possible into a tinytinytiny washing machine we finally collapsed in the hostel’s small cafe and ordered a well deserved pint of beer. Unfortunately, however, just as I reached out to take my first grateful sip of said beer I was horrendously distracted by the sight of Clementine reaching into her mouth, wrenching out a molar, and slamming it, bloody and wet, on the table in front of me with a glare.

It was like something straight out of The Fly. “Here,” she said. “For you.” The profanity following that statement was, for once, only implied. As was the “ So you think you’ve had a long day?” Not wanting to enrage someone who was clearly undergoing some sort of metamorphosis (and who, terrible as the thought was, might be changing into something even worse), I simply picked up the tooth, slipped it into my purse, and kept my own mouth wisely shut.

Well, at least I did until several months later, when I was having dinner with Clementine and her new boyfriend. Reaching into my purse for my wallet I felt the little jagged lump with my fingers, pulled it out, slammed it down on the table with the same emphasis Clementine once had, and said to her boyfriend, “Here. For you.”

Judging from the horrified look Clementine shot me afterwards, revenge really is a dish best served cold. Of course, I won’t know for sure about that until I go out to dinner with Clyde’s new girlfriend. Because, luckily for me, he, too, pulled out his own bloody gift to me just the other night.

It’s already in my purse.

When my daughter, Clementine, was four years old she and I went to the park almost every day. One day I heard her chattering away with a little boy I had never seen before at the top of the slide. As they stood on the ladder, waiting for their respective turns, the boy looked at Clementine, looked at her short hair and overalls, and then asked her “Are you a boy or a girl?” Clementine, for her part, looked back at him like he couldn’t possibly be for real and said, “I’m a Clementine!” (The “moron” part was implied). And then she went down the slide and forgot all about him. Or at least that’s what I thought.

Fast forward thirteen years, and Clementine is now seventeen, And, apparently, hasn’t forgotten what it is like to be asked whether or not you are a boy or a girl.

The first time she referred to herself as cisgendered I was confused, and had to ask what it meant.

“It means you identify with the gender you were born into,” she explained.

“So, um, it means you’re normal?”

“No.” The look she gave me made me understand how that little boy had felt all those years ago. The same “moron” still hung in the air, unspoken, as she gently led me to understand the very real difference between being “normal” and being “common.”

She then went on to explain the difference between hetero-, homo-, bi-, pan-, demi- and asexual, and even patiently taught me that there could be a difference between someone’s sexual and romantic orientations. At first I just rolled my eyes when she told me she was a “cisgendered pansexual panromantic,” asking why she had to make something so simple into something so needlessly complicated. And then, after I thought about it for a bit, (and got over myself a little bit more), I started to see her point.

Unlike young Clementine, I have never once been asked “what I am”—not at any age. I have also never been the subject of rude stares, points and giggles, or flat-out disgusted looks because I don’t fit into somebody else’s idea of what I’m “supposed” to look like. And, to be honest, neither has Clementine. Which makes it all the more amazing that she recognizes that this is exactly what does happen to so many of her peers.

Last week was the Transgender Day of Remembrance. And because I am lucky enough to have a daughter who cares about things like that, I knew it, and was able to spend a moment or two reflecting on all the little ways we could try and make life easier for people who aren’t quite as “common” as the rest of us. Small things, really, like agreeing to call someone by the pronoun they feel most comfortable with (hint: most people do not feel comfortable with “it.”) And also, agreeing not to “out” people who do not feel ready to be outed.

The second one is why I made sure to okay this column with Clementine before I wrote it. After she gave me her permission she asked me what had been my inspiration for writing it, and I told her the “I’m a Clementine!” story. She hadn’t remembered it herself, and laughed to hear it.

“Well, what was your response?” she then asked me.

I thought about it for a moment, and then told her, “I think it was, ‘Right on, Clementine.’”

And now that I think about it some more, that is still my response. Every single day.

Both of my children started playing the violin at a very young age: Clementine when she was four, and Clyde when he was five. (We waited an extra year for Clyde because he needed time to work on his fine motor skills. And by “fine motor skills” I mean the ability to hold still for longer than five seconds without vibrating from all of the unshed energy.) Despite starting at different ages, however, it took both of them about the same amount of time—a month—to decide that they wanted to quit. (I think a month is about as long as it takes anyone to realize that the difference between wanting to play the violin and actually playing the violin is about a thousand hours of practice. At least.)

Clementine’s method of telling me she wanted to quit was to throw herself (and her violin) down on the ground, clutch at her head dramatically, and moan out the words “I don’t want to play the violin. I wish I was dead.” Clyde’s method was a little different: he looked up from his bow one afternoon and quietly said, almost under his breath, “I don’t want to play the violin.”

My reaction to both was the same: “I don’t care what you want; you’re playing the violin.” Harsh, I know, but really, it was the truth: I didn’t care what they wanted. Of course, this was (and still is) true about a lot of things. I didn’t care that they wanted to stay up all night, I didn’t care that they wanted to put every candy bar in the checkout line into our grocery basket, and I didn’t care that they wanted to wear their bathing suits to school in the middle of winter. Compared to that list, not caring that they wanted to quit the violin was pretty minor. Or, at least it was minor to me.

Of course, other people didn’t see it this way. Whenever I mentioned the fact that I was forcing my children to take music lessons you’d think I was admitting to hauling them down to the local Scientology center every weekend. People couldn’t wait to tell me their horror stories of being forced to play the piano, and the lingering resentment they still felt about it as adults to this day. And the reaction I got about it at home wasn’t much better. “Do we really need to go out and look for more things to fight with them about?” my husband asked me plaintively one evening in the midst of a violin induced tantrum.

“They’ll stop fighting about it eventually,” I replied. “When they learn they can’t win.”

Okay, so I was a lot more naïve back then. Because they didn’t stop fighting. But then again, they didn’t win, either. Although Clementine did manage to switch instruments on me, she only switched to viola, which she still plays thirteen years after the first meltdown. And Clyde is still playing the violin after seven years. Have they always been happy about their enforced music lessons? Of course not (although, really, at seventeen I have about as much chance of making Clementine play an instrument as I do of making her vote one way or another. Which, is to say, no chance at all.)

Honestly I think most of their complaining at this point is all for show, a fall back of sorts if their friends ever ask why they are still taking music lessons (“because my mom makes me”). Although, really, that might just be wishful thinking on my part. Who knows? Maybe twenty years from now they will be telling their own sad little stories about how their mother forced them to play violin all through their childhoods.

Maybe. Of course, that won’t matter to me. I still won’t care.

Both of my children started playing the violin at a very young age: Clementine when she was four, and Clyde when he was five. (We waited an extra year for Clyde because he needed time to work on his fine motor skills. And by “fine motor skills” I mean the ability to hold still for longer than five seconds without vibrating from all of the unshed energy.) Despite starting at different ages, however, it took both of them about the same amount of time—a month—to decide that they wanted to quit. (I think a month is about as long as it takes anyone to realize that the difference between wanting to play the violin and actually playing the violin is about a thousand hours of practice. At least.)

Clementine’s method of telling me she wanted to quit was to throw herself (and her violin) down on the ground, clutch at her head dramatically, and moan out the words “I don’t want to play the violin. I wish I was dead.” Clyde’s method was a little different: he looked up from his bow one afternoon and quietly said, almost under his breath, “I don’t want to play the violin.”

My reaction to both was the same: “I don’t care what you want; you’re playing the violin.” Harsh, I know, but really, it was the truth: I didn’t care what they wanted. Of course, this was (and still is) true about a lot of things. I didn’t care that they wanted to stay up all night, I didn’t care that they wanted to put every candy bar in the checkout line into our grocery basket, and I didn’t care that they wanted to wear their bathing suits to school in the middle of winter. Compared to that list, not caring that they wanted to quit the violin was pretty minor. Or, at least it was minor to me.

Of course, other people didn’t see it this way. Whenever I mentioned the fact that I was forcing my children to take music lessons you’d think I was admitting to hauling them down to the local Scientology center every weekend. People couldn’t wait to tell me their horror stories of being forced to play the piano, and the lingering resentment they still felt about it as adults to this day. And the reaction I got about it at home wasn’t much better. “Do we really need to go out and look for more things to fight with them about?” my husband asked me plaintively one evening in the midst of a violin induced tantrum.

“They’ll stop fighting about it eventually,” I replied. “When they learn they can’t win.”

Okay, so I was a lot more naïve back then. Because they didn’t stop fighting. But then again, they didn’t win, either. Although Clementine did manage to switch instruments on me, she only switched to viola, which she still plays thirteen years after the first meltdown. And Clyde is still playing the violin after seven years. Have they always been happy about their enforced music lessons? Of course not (although, really, at seventeen I have about as much chance of making Clementine play an instrument as I do of making her vote one way or another. Which, is to say, no chance at all.)

Honestly I think most of their complaining at this point is all for show, a fall back of sorts if their friends ever ask why they are still taking music lessons (“because my mom makes me”). Although, really, that might just be wishful thinking on my part. Who knows? Maybe twenty years from now they will be telling their own sad little stories about how their mother forced them to play violin all through their childhoods.

Maybe. Of course, that won’t matter to me. I still won’t care.

I’ve heard that one of the best ways to get over an allergy is to slowly desensitize yourself to whatever it is you are allergic to. For example, if you are allergic to bee stings you should expose yourself to a tiny bit of bee venom every day, increasing the dosage until you got to the point where you aren’t affected quite so adversely. Or, I suppose, if you continue the desensitization, to the point where it doesn’t affect you at all. Heck, if you keep it up I bet you could get to the point where you could just stick your whole arm into a beehive and walk away unaffected. Or, to put it in terms that are more relevant to my family and our situation, get to the point where you could walk into the killing fields we call Middle School and walk out unscathed. Because that’s exactly what has happened to my son, Clyde. And he owes it all to his older sister, Clementine.

I must admit that at the time I didn’t really appreciate that Clementine was putting Clyde through a desensitization regimen: I didn’t realize that Clementine’s daily barbs and slights from the time Clyde was old enough to understand language were not, in fact, some evil, twisted torment dreamt up by a sick and vicious mind, but instead were daily inoculations against bullying. That her constant assault on Clyde’s sense of self-worth and dignity was not a sociopath grooming her victim, but rather the loving prep work of a caring older sister who was worried about her sweet, sensitive younger brother dealing with the viciousness that was waiting for him just down the road. However, now that he is right in the thick of that fresh hell we call Middle School, I can see that that, in fact, was exactly what she was doing.

Desensitizing him.

It almost makes me feel sorry for the kids who might try and bully Clyde; after all, what casually hurled insult shouted out across a crowded school bus could possibly compare to having your older sister whisper into your ear each and every morning, “No one here ever really wanted you.” For that matter, what slander scrawled across a locker door can ever compete with having every word that comes out of your mouth from the time you are two until you are old enough to fight back replied to with “Shut up, Clyde.” Your average 13 year-old bully is a rank amateur compared to an almost-always-pissy older sister.

In fact, I can just imagine Clyde’s reaction to being taunted at school the first time. He probably stood there patiently waiting for the warm-up act to finish so that the real torture could begin, only to be confused when his would-be tormentor finally walked away.

“Wait a minute! “I’m stupid, ugly and what? Where’s the rest?”

He did actually tell me about a few times when he was still taking the bus to school that older kids attempted to bully him, but I got the impression that it took at least three times before Clyde was even able to figure out what was going on. “There’s this kid on the bus that seems really unhappy all the time,” he said. “I have no idea why.” (It was only later, when I found out that “really unhappy” was Clydespeak for “said he was going to beat me up” that I finally got the picture. Even if Clyde never did.)

Still, as successful as the “Clementine Method” has been, I’m not sure that I would recommend it for everyone. Having watched it in action over the last ten years, I would suggest starting out with something easier instead.

Like maybe sticking your arm inside a beehive.