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Back in our twenties, my friend Regina and I found ourselves in a Scottish bar surrounded by, of all things, a bunch of drunken Scots. One of them–Murray–kept asking us the same question over and over, which, due to a combination of his accent and all of our various levels of inebriation, came out sounding to us like “Wanya ga furbyin’?” After asking him to repeat himself several times we could tell that he was starting to get irritated, and so, in desperation, we finally just said, “Sure. Ok.” At which point we found ourselves whisked into a cab with several of the drunkest Scots (including our questioner), and driven down a dark Scottish road to, presumably, a dank cellar filled with torture devices and piles of freshly cleaned American-girl bones. (What was it they said in An American Werewolf in London? “Stick to the road, stay clear of the bars”?). Luckily for us, the place we ended up at turned out to be nothing more sinister than another bar, filled with another set of drunken Scots. (When we saw the name of the place–The Far Bay Inn–Murray’s persistent question suddenly started to make sense).

This experience taught us a valuable lesson: never give an answer to a question which you don’t fully comprehend. It was too bad we had to wait until we were in our twenties to learn it, though, especially as that probably means that–at ages seven and eleven–it will be many a year before my children finally figure that one out for themselves.

In a way, I guess that, as parents, we’re partially to blame; after all, we do kind of start them down the road of misunderstanding when we try to teach them basic manners as infants. “What do you say?” we prompt them, at occasions as diverse as receiving a present, asking for a cookie, and stepping on their playmate’s gerbil. “What do you say?” And, like the poor traveler who only knows three phrases of the native language–and even then manage to confuse them–the poor toddler is left to guess at which answer (please, thank you, or sorry) will most quickly please his inquisitor. (Let’s see, I just squished this little mouse thing and everyone is glaring at me– ‘Thank you?’ No, that’s not it–‘Please?’ Oh crap, it must be ‘Sorry.’” ).

It would be one thing if this language confusion ended in toddler-hood; however, (as we saw from our Scottish encounter), it usually only gets worse. Case in point: “I forgot.” Somewhere along the line, children started confusing “I forgot” with “I got caught,” to the point where, eventually, they became interchangeable.

“Why didn’t you put you plate in the sink?”–“I forgot.”

“Why aren’t you wearing any underwear?”–“I forgot.”

“Why did you go into the bathroom, run the shower for twenty minutes, splash some water on your face and then come out pretending you had taken a shower?”–“I forgot.”

Again, just as in toddler-hood, when this phrase fails to have a suitably soothing effect, they begin to toss more and more phrases into the mix in a desperate attempt at appeasement, because now they are no longer simply the traveler with limited language skills, they are that same traveler after he has been stopped at the border with 27 live parrots stuffed down his pants. “I forgot” becomes “I didn’t know” becomes “It won’t happen again”–anything to stop the inquisition, because now they aren’t so much answering this particular question as trying to forestall any new ones. In fact, after awhile you might as well be asking them if they “wanya ga furbyin.” Although, at least with children, it is unlikely that you will ever get them to just say “yes.”

Of all the questions I get asked concerning my column, probably the one that I hear most frequently is: but how do your kids feel about it? My answer–as it so often is when it comes to children–is: it depends. For instance, my son, Clyde, is totally nonchalant about the whole thing: in his “I love everybody/everybody loves me” world, there really is no such thing as bad publicity–it’s all good. And then again, there’s the fact that, he is, after all, a guy; in other words, he just doesn’t notice it.

Clementine, on the other hand–being a girl–is much more cognizant of what’s going on; not only does she recognize that I write this column every week, but she is also savvy enough to realize when I am on the lookout for column fodder. When she decided to trim off her eyebrows to Bob Geldof, (The Wall) levels, the first thing she asked me was not how long would it take for them to grow back, but rather how long before I wrote about it. (The answer? About three months–for both).

Sometimes, of course, people don’t just ask me what my kids think about this column; they ask me how I can do that to them. To these people I always tell them one of three things: one, that I had the chance to meet Erma Bombeck’s children a few years ago in Dayton, Ohio, and that they were all completely normal and well-adjusted, (and, in the case of the youngest son, downright HOT); two, that at least I don’t turn my kids into creepy little Hallmark ads haunted by dead Grandpa the way that Bil Keane does; and three, that if my kids don’t like it they can always get their revenge a la Mommy Dearest. As my favorite writing teacher used to say: writing well is the best revenge.

In the case of number three, however; while I might say that they are welcome to get their revenge in their own writing, the truth is that I’ve always believed that I would have years and years to prepare myself before those literary chickens came home to roost–years until the unflattering biographies started coming out. After all, I figured they would at least have to learn the basics of a five paragraph essay before they could pillory me in print, or even how to successfully use spell check. Unfortunately, though, I forgot about one thing: the song. I forgot that you don’t have to know how to spell to write a song.

That’s why it caught me off guard when Clementine wrote her first angsty rock song about me. It’s about my supposed cleaning “fetish,” and it’s called “Put It Away.” In it, I come across as some sort of neurotic neat freak. In other words, it is spot on.

It kicks off with a sort of primal scream, which, as Clementine delights in telling her audience, is the sound I make whenever I walk in the front door and find the living room knee-deep in books, shoes, toys, and teetering glasses of sticky lemonade. Then it launches into the chorus:

Put your things away/ before I throw them in the trash/and if I find them out again/I will kick you in the [electric keyboard bleep]. (That last part is actually an improvement over my usual vocabulary; I don’t often carry around a keyboard so that I can bleep myself, although I probably should.)

Although this is only her first foray into song-writing revenge, something tells me that it won’t be her last. That is, if she can only start remembering to put her amp and bass away when she’s done with them. They’re both rentals, so I can’t really “throw it in the trash.” I can, however, still kick her in the [electric keyboard bleep].

“Mo-om,” says Clementine, stretching that one syllable out into two or three (all the better to fit the amused disdain in), “nobody calls it a bookbag anymore.”

Well, I thought, there goes my sense of accomplishment. And I had just been feeling so proud of myself for managing to string together the sentence “Clementine, please put this bookbag in your room,” when usually what escaped my lips during one of these semiannual house organizing tirades was something more along the lines of “You over there–yeah, you–Clem-Cly-Clem–the taller one–put that thing–that thing that holds other things–in that place–the one with the bed. Oh, you know what I’m talking about: just do it.”

At which point my husband will make some comment like, “Gee, it’s so nice to have a writer in the house,” to which I will respond with some brilliant comeback like: “Oh, shut up…you.”

But this time I had been able to reach deep into my vocabulary and withdraw just the word that I had been looking for: bookbag. A bag that holds books. What could be wrong with that word? How could such a simple, perfectly descriptive word be classified as unhip? And yet, according to the look of eye-rolling disdain that had accompanied Clementine’s retort, that was exactly what it was: unhip. Worse than unhip, it was somehow archaic. How had that happened? Had I, myself, been unhip for so long now that the words I used were no longer merely unhip themselves, but were actually dangerously anachronistic?

I mean, c’mon: it wasn’t as if I had dredged the word up out of the 19th century or something; it’s not like I had told her to “tote that there satchel into the parlor, young lady–and while you’re at it, tell yer Pa to get his brogans off’n the davenport.” And yet, according to Clementine’s sneering reaction, it was.

Yes, according to Clementine’s reaction I had now become so completely out of touch that if I wanted to get something picked up off of the floor I would need to learn an entirely new vocabulary. Somehow, I’m not buying it.

Yes, I realize that every generation has its new version of “cool.” (Except, oddly enough, for the word “cool” itself–that word has proven to be rather uniquely timeless.) I know that “sick” becomes “sweet” and that “totally” becomes “way,” but unless we’re in the middle of a cockney rhyming slang renaissance, I sincerely doubt that, like Clementine says, there are completely different words for absolutely everything these days. In fact, I rather suspect that she is trying to pull a fast one here–do a number on me, give it some spin (whatever they’re saying now). And while I can’t help but resent it, I also have to admit that I do rather admire her for the attempt.

When you think about it, it’s really a brilliant plan; after all, what better way to avoid complying with my draconian (at least according to her) cleanliness rules than by pretending not to understand what I’m talking about? Here’s how it works: I ask her to “make her bed,” and she says “um, alright.” I tell her to put away her shoes and she says “oh-kay…” Later, when I ask her why those chores still aren’t done, she says something like: “Oh, did you mean you wanted me to fix my flop and stow my kicks? Why didn’t you just say so?” (Even better, if I am so foolish as to try and use those exact same terms back to her the next day she can always pretend that they are already obsolete, and respond with “Shot who?”)

Brilliant. So brilliant, in fact, that it’s no wonder that I am now reduced to cave language. Word. True dat. And, let’s not forget, fo shizzle.

The ironic thing is that the only reason I saw the protesters at all is because I was sneaking out the back way of McDonalds; I was ashamed to be seen taking my child into a place like that. It’s true: I was embarrassed to be seen patronizing a business that supports factory farming, uses high fructose corn syrup, and serves as a distribution center for millions of little plastic toys–you know, the ones that pause momentarily in your child’s toy box on their voyage from Chinese child laborer to American landfill. Not to mention that everything I was purchasing had been shipped hundreds, if not thousands of miles, and that, in order to get the stuff I had sat in the drive-thru for 20 minutes, exhaust idling all the way. Really, I chided myself, all you need to do is toss the wrappers out the window on the way home and you will be the perfect storm of neglectful consumerism. I was so deep, in fact, into my little fit of hippier-than-thou self-loathing that I nearly drove right past the protesters standing out in front of our local Planned Parenthood. I other words, I nearly drove right past one of those pesky teachable moments.

With the beginning of the new school year, and with the promise (threat?) of middle school just around the corner, I’ve been bringing up the subject of bullying a lot. Or rather, the subject of the bully’s greatest asset, The Bystander. At least the word itself is easy to explain: just like a butterfly is something that “flutters by,” a bystander is someone who stands by and does nothing while bullies do their foul work, thereby allowing the bullies to think that what they are doing is defensible, and right. What I tell my kids is this: we don’t have a bullying problem–we have a bystanding problem. If one day everyone in the world decided that they were through bystanding, then the next day would see the sun rise on a much different and better world. Don’t be a bully, I tell them. Don’t be a victim. But above all else, don’t be a bystander. Of course, that’s the easy part; the hard part is then matching my actions to words.

Which is why I almost ignored the small collection of fanatics gathered outside our little clinic. (Although, with their quaint, yet lurid posters–very Norman Rockwell meets Alfred Hitchcock– it would have taken quite a bit of denial to have kept driving). As it turned out, I ended up pulling into the parking lot so fast that I had already parked the car and turned off the ignition before I really thought about what I was going to do, something that did not escape my son, Clyde.

“Mom, what are we doing?”

Ah yes: Clyde; in my haste I had forgotten that he was in the car with me. Suddenly I began to have second thoughts, which soon became third and fourth thoughts as the protesters started yelling at me–yelling at Clyde–as we sat in the car. What was I doing? Was this really something he needed to see? After all, I could always drive home, drop him off, and come back later…or not. It wasn’t like this was really my fight–was it? Then I looked back at Clyde, trustingly waiting for me to make the next move–to do the right thing–and suddenly the decision became clear. I pointed at the protesters thirty feet away.

“See those people, Clyde? Those are bullies, and the people they’re bullying are inside that building–we need to help them.” As I said this I grabbed my wallet to make a donation, and felt good about myself for the first time all morning–that is, until I saw what Clyde was carrying.

“Yeah. But leave the McDonalds bag in the car–nobody needs to see that.”

First off, let me start by saying that I love music–I really do. In fact, you could even say that music saved my life.

Once upon a time, way back in grade school, I was waiting at the bus stop with my sister, Kim, who–despite being two years older than me–was my size or even smaller (she got carded going in to R-rated movies well into her twenties). With us were all of the other neighborhood kids–nearly a dozen (this was 1975, when kids still rode the bus)–who were doing their best to use up some excess energy before the bus came, because even though our bus driver was a nice man [with a quaint habit of turning down the radio every time a swear word came on, thus turning “Bad, Bad, Leroy Brown” into “the baddest man in the whole (mute) town”] he was also a bit of a bad (mute) himself, and was rumored to carry a paddle up near the front of the bus to use on unruly children. ( Remember, this was 1975.)

Anyway, there we were, waiting for the bus, when out of nowhere I was laid out by an ENORMOUS (cantaloupe-sized in my original retelling, but probably more the size of a sickly plum) rock; it seemed that Sammy Gale had decided to work off his excess energy by throwing rocks up into the air. Now, being grade school students, you wouldn’t expect any of us to be intimately familiar with the work of Sir Isaac Newton, but even I knew that what goes up must come down, and therefore also knew that despite all of his protests that “it was an accident,” Sammy was far from blameless in this incident. Which was all I needed to utter the two words known to strike fear into children everywhere: “I’m telling.”

Of course, what I was forgetting was that there was no one there to actually tell at the time, and so, recognizing the impotence of my threat, Sammy picked up an even BIGGER rock (this one, I think, really was the size of a cantaloupe), and told me to “shut my mouth.” Then he stepped towards me.

And that’s when it happened: like something out of a ninja movie my big/little sister was in between us, and that odd whistling sound we all heard was the noise her flute case made as it reached terminal velocity before connecting with Sammy’s chin. The end result, of course, was that this time it was Sammy who was laid out, and Sammy who was screaming “I’m telling!” Which he did, as soon as we got on the bus. And for which the bus driver teased him mercilessly over the next few years, on account of him getting “beat up by a little girl.” (Again, this was 1975.)

Needless to say, Sammy Gale did not grow up to be a great lover of music. On the other hand, I did, which makes it even less fitting that I should now be the one who is regularly assaulted by a musical instrument: Clementine’s double bass.

Now, I know that roadies often suffer from the unstable temperaments of the musicians they serve, and, having served under Clementine in many other capacities (maid, chef, chauffeur, personal assistant), I expected no less. I expected to be yelled at, berated, cajoled, and then yelled at some more. Which I was. However, what I did not expect was to be regularly beaten about the head and shoulders as I attempted to wrestle an instrument larger than myself into a Honda, nor to have that same instrument launch itself at me like some kind of amorous drunk once I had finally gotten both of us on the road. But, what I expected the least, was to actually start feeling a wee bit sorry for poor old Sammy Gale–the little (mute).

Throughout the years, the role of messenger has never been what most people would consider to be a “glamorous” one; however, there have been a few notable exceptions to this rule. There’s Pheidippides–the guy who ran all the way to Athens to deliver news of the victory at Marathon; there’s the Voyager 1 space probe, which even now may be delivering news (via a “golden record”) of a hip, happening, 1977-era Earth to civilizations in the far reaches of our solar system and beyond (won’t those same civilizations be disappointed when they send another probe back just to tell us that disco sucks and we reply “Yeah, we know”?); and then, of course, there’s probably the most famous messenger of all (at least in this country), Paul Revere, who rode through the night to warn of an impending British invasion (no, not the one where the Clash and the Sex Pistols came over to help us figure out that disco sucked–the other one). At first glance, you might think that these three–a Greek, a Colonial, and a machine–have nothing at all in common, but upon closer inspection it becomes obvious that all three share in one very defining characteristic: not one of them was a child.

How do I know this? Well, they all faithfully delivered the messages they were charged with, didn’t they? This means that no children could possibly have been involved, because if they had been, then not only would we all still be drinking tea and eating crumpets, but we would also still be wondering how that whole thing at Marathon ever turned out (and, quite possibly, still be listening to disco).

It isn’t just your average child’s tendency to simply forget to deliver a message that brings me to this conclusion–you know, the way that a phone message intercepted by a child has about as much chance of reaching its intended recipient as a note in a bottle tossed into the open ocean would. No, what I’m talking about is the fact that any piece of news that is delivered by a child suffers from the seemingly contradictory maladies of being both terribly truncated and extremely meandering. Take the Paul Revere story, for example: if my daughter Clementine had been in charge of relaying the warning it would have gone something like this:

Clementine (casually sauntering up): So, um, yeah, it’s by land.

Anxious Townspeople: What?

Clementine: They’re gonna come by land.

A.T.: Who are?

Clementine: I dunno. Whoever’s coming, I guess.

A.T.: Who told you this?

Clementine: A lantern.

A.T.: A what?

Clementine: You know, one of those light thingys.

A.T.: Yes, we know what a lantern is; but who was holding the lantern?

Clementine: I dunno.

A. T. (Giving up): Well, I guess if it’s important they’ll shine back.

It’s enough to make you think that maybe all those stories you hear about the tyrant kings of old “shooting the messenger” were not so much about their disappointment with the message, but rather their vexation at the way the message was delivered.

Either that, or they were just cranky from all that disco.

“Mom, what was it like when the war ended?”

I hesitate a bit before I answer Clementine’s question. It’s a difficult question for me to answer–not because of what was going on in the world in 1975, but because of what was going on in my life; it’s hard to admit that I was more interested in the end of Sonny and Cher than the fall of Saigon. All I can say in my defense is that, to a seven-year old, there was lots of more interesting stuff going on: The Streak–considered by most discerning seven-year olds to be the BEST SONG EVER–was playing continuously on nearly every radio station; The Wallace and Ladmo Show–The Simpsons of its day (at least in Phoenix)–was on TV every single weekday morning; and, to top it all off, Mattel had just introduced Barbie’s new best friend, the “Kelly” doll, something that finally gave me reason to hope that one day I, too, would grow up to be a statuesque redhead.

All these things float through my mind as I drag out my answer, trying to put off the inevitable moment when I’ll have to admit to Clementine that–on this, too–she is much more hip now than I ever was at her age: when I was her age I didn’t even know what a war was. And even though I would like to be able to tell her that I remember watching protests on TV, or that every car either sported a “Make Love, Not War” or a “Love It or Leave It” bumper sticker, or even that every conversation I eavesdropped on contained funny-sounding words like Mai Lai, Da Nang, or Saigon, the truth of the matter is that I was much too wrapped up in starting a Monkees tribute band (I would be Peter Tork) to notice. Eventually I manage to come up with a lame: “Well, why do you ask, dear?” in reply (hopefully said in the thoughtful and sagacious manner of Hugh Beaumont from Leave it to Beaver —right down to the pipe in my mouth).

“Oh, I was just wondering what it was like–you know, the rationing, the air raid drills. Did you have a victory garden?”

And that’s when it hits me: all this angst was for nothing– she’s not talking about the Vietnam War; she’s talking about World War II. I spit out my imaginary pipe in indignation.

“Hey! I wasn’t even born when World War II started– or ended; Grandma was barely born then. What makes you think I’m old enough to remember World War II, anyway?”

She gives me a look that clearly says, “What makes you think I’m stupid enough to answer a question like that?” before sidling away, but it’s too late: the damage has been done. Suddenly I’m one of The Ancient Ones; a genuine piece of “living history.”

But how can that be? What about my nearly perfect recall of 1975 (well, my part in it, anyway)? How, I think, can I be old when I can so clearly remember what it was like to be young? But then I really think about 1975, and I wonder: what do I really remember? After all, even though I can obviously still recall the facts of my youth ( the names of everyone on Wild, Wild, West, or the lyrics to “Hotel California,” for instance), I find I have fewer and fewer memories of the essence. Of what it was like to have to eat something I found disgusting. Or to share a room with someone I (at least temporarily) despised. Or even to be more interested in the Monkees than in the tragedies unfolding all around me. And that’s when I finally realize what my answer should have been all along:

“What was it like when the war ended? It was great.”

Whenever I hear a story about someone who–despite having lived in their house for over 50 years–just recently found Al Capone’s missing loot hidden behind a wall, or one of Shakespeare’s lost plays in the bottom of an armoire, I always think the same thing (and no, it’s not “I hope you choke on it, you lucky stiff”).What I think is “Well, obviously this was a house that had never had any children living in it.”

Not because the children themselves–those “inquisitive little darlings”–would have explored every single corner of the house on their own (that would involve turning off–and then looking away from–the TV), but because the presence of those same children would have automatically guaranteed that the house had been turned upside down and inside out many, many times over the course of those fifty years, as the children (and their parents) went through the motions of a little game that I like to call “gone.” As in “where is your homework/new dress/snorkel/trombone?” “Gone.”

Whoever said that wherever you find children you’ll also find childish things had no idea how true that statement would prove to be; this becomes painfully obvious once you understand that the key word in the above sentence is “you.” As in “you” will find “their” things, because it is certain that “they” won’t. That’s why I’m positive that if someone had been living in a house for fifty years–with children–the house could not possibly contain anyone’s lost treasure. There’s just no way that treasure could have withstood all those searches for missing soccer cleats, saxophone reeds, and iPods (or, as the case would have been fifty years ago: leather football helmets, ukulele strings, and 45 records). The fact of the matter is that in a child-ridden house, Al Capone would not have been able to stash so much as a stick of gum. Hidden behind secret panels, tucked away behind spinning fireplaces–none of it would have mattered, because no matter how well Mr. Capone might have though he had hidden it, nothing would have stood up to a mother trying to find a missing violin in the final 15 minutes before the big recital.

Take our house, for example. I am positive that even though it is over a hundred years old, nothing could have escaped this spring’s biweekly search for Clementine’s baseball shirt. Because she had fifteen games this season (despite my body’s protestations that it was more like 215, the calendar would only admit to those fifteen), we tore the house apart looking for her baseball shirt approximately fifteen times. During the course of these searches we found wet, moldering towels stuffed into sock drawers, broken and poorly hidden family heirlooms, and evidence that the cardinal rule–Thou Shalt Not Bring Food Into the Bedroom–was being flouted regularly. We also, eventually, found the shirt. (And before you say something clever like “why don’t you just have one place where the shirt always goes whenever it’s not being worn, know this: we did, and we do, but there is something so soul-draining about sitting out in the glaring sun, freezing wind, driving snow and pelting rain for two hours to watch a game–this being Flagstaff, this was all in the same game–that by the time we got back to the house it was all we could do to point at the equipment bag and gibber incoherently.) Which meant that, once again, the shirt was on its way for another “tour de house.” And so–in my role as chief searcher–was I.

In fact, I think it’s safe to say that the reason Al Capone’s treasure has stayed hidden all these years is probably because no one ever told their mother that the last time they remember seeing their baseball jersey was “down at that guy Al’s house–I think he was using it to wrap some treasure.”

Not too long ago I came across a list of last year’s Oscar winners. What shocked me was not so much how many of the movies I had never seen, but rather how many of them I had never even heard of in the first place. (You’d think that the fact that I hadn’t even seen the list until midsummer would have prepared me for how out of touch with current cultural events I was, but no.) And while I suppose that I could always try catching up on my 2007 movie watching now, I’m afraid that–given my track record–it might be 2010 before I finished with the list; which, of course, would defeat the purpose of the whole thing entirely as it would therefore put me hopelessly behind again for 2008 and 2009.

Which is why I finally decided that instead of actually watching last year’s films, (or even reading a full review of them), it would be better for all concerned if I simply imagined myself watching them; this method would not only save me heaps of time but also let me avoid the frustration and annoyance I often feel whenever I do get around to watching an Oscar winner. (I still feel resentful about the two hours of my life I gave up to watch Lost in Translation.) Following then is my list of last year’s imaginary Oscar nominees, complete with matching imaginary descriptions–filtered, as always, through a parent’s eyes.

I think No Country For Old Men must have been be the latest documentary from Morgan Sporlock detailing what happens when a grandparent endures a marathon double birthday party at Peter Piper Pizza.

There Will Be Blood was a little tougher, until I heard that it contained the line, “I drink your milkshake. I drink it up!” Then it became clear that it was about the violence that follows an ill-fated trip to Baskin-Robbins during which one child steals another’s frozen treat.

Eastern Promises is about a mother who–caught up in the pre-Olympics hype–absently agreed that, “Yes, we should go to China”–and is now being pestered to do it.

Into the Wild and The Savages are both cautionary tales about what happens when you skip the weekly room clean-up inspection for 6 weeks in a row, thinking, “Oh, they’re old enough to start taking on some responsibilities now.”

Away From Her is the suspenseful drama of a mother trying to keep her six-year-old son from bothering her stressed-out eleven-year-old daughter who is trying to finish a massive school project that is due the next day.

I’m Not There is the bittersweet story of a mother’s attempt at misdirection so that she may, for once, take a bath without a crying/complaining/tattling child hanging off the doorknob and screaming, “Mom! Are you in there?”

Atonement is a moody little film about children breaking your grandmother’s antique teapot after they have been told repeatedly to leave it alone.

Gone, Baby, Gone is a tear-jerker about sending your last-born away to kindergarten, giving you the empty house you always claimed you wanted.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is a quirky little documentary about all those things which–despite their being absolutely vital to peace and happiness–repeatedly get left behind at the motel pool and not remembered until you are 100 miles down the road.

The (First) Bourne Ultimatum is one of a series of movies about the times an oldest child–drawing on her memories of being “the only one”–declares she will not put up with any more requests for “sharing.”

And finally, Once. The tale of a mother who used to see every new movie that came out, but is now reduced to only seeing those in which inanimate objects and rodents are given speaking roles–and not in a good way.

Here’s how a recent vacation started out for me: we hadn’t been on the road for five minutes before Clementine’s aggrieved voice floated up from the backseat.

“Are you going to get drunk on this trip?”

Now, historically, my first instinct has always been to reply to a question of that nature with some kind of wisecrack like: “Am I going to get drunk? Honey, you’d be better off asking me if I ever plan on getting sober.” However, my decade plus relationship with Clementine has taught me that it’s best not to get involved in these do-you-still-beat-your-wife type questions. So, as much as I was dying to find out which after school special that question had come from–as well as defend my (relatively good) record of sobriety–I knew that traveling down that path was a one-way ticket to the land of drama. And so instead I kept silent and tried to remember the last time I had really been drunk.

Certainly I had gotten drunk before Clementine had come along; my bachelorette party stands out in particular, for no other reason than, embarrassingly enough, it is all captured on videotape. But Clementine couldn’t be thinking about that; after all, in a decidedly old-fashioned twist, she was born nearly a year after the wedding. And I know that I was drunk several times while on my honeymoon in Thailand–since the beach bars we frequented would only sell whisky by the bottle, it was actually fairly amazing that I have any recollection of Thailand at all. But again, Clementine wasn’t with us on our honeymoon (except, in a very small way, at the very end–that Thai whisky is potent stuff), so I was sure that she wasn’t thinking about those times either.

Really, the more I thought about it, the more sure I was that I had never been really drunk since she came along. Don’t get me wrong: it’s not because I have any moral superiority here, it’s just that “children” and “hangover” add up to one of the worst combinations ever–worse even than “discount” and “sushi”–although, in the end, the results from both are the same.

And so it was that–relatively secure in my own innocence–I continued to ponder Clementine’s question as we drove down the road. Perhaps it had just been idle curiosity: you know, “Are you going to wear your bathing suit? Are you going to get a tattoo? Are you going to get drunk on this trip?” Maybe. The whole thing, however, reeked of chastisement, something that has never sat well with me–even in the best of times–and sits even less better now that we are in the preteen years. After all, it’s pretty hard to take a lecture on drunkenness from someone who will probably one day (hopefully, not until her college years) experience the exquisitely painful humiliation of a Zima hangover.

In fact, it’s hard to get lectured on anything from someone who would put a carton of ice cream under a bed and then be surprised and indignant when you’re upset about the ensuing mess. But that, unfortunately, is life in the preteen lane. I get lectures on “going green” from someone who has never, at any point in their life, turned off a light upon leaving a room, and who thinks of the refrigerator as an ad hoc air conditioner.

Not only that, but I get driving lessons from someone who thinks that using the stick shift while driving a car with manual transmission is some sort of an affectation (“Do you have to grab that thing all the time?”), and nutrition counseling from someone who has already consumed their own weight in ramen noodles–twice.

Come to think of it, maybe I will be getting drunk on our next trip after all.