Where Do I Begin?

And what followed the inception of that brilliant little scheme was nothing short of cloak and dagger comedy.

Why Charlotte had to listen to all of this remains a mystery. But I have to say, what sib doesn't enjoy a titillating story about another sib from the point of view of the parent who was dished to by another sib? It is gossip at its syrupy sweet best.

However, she starts with complaints that really can not be validated. They are alleged to have come from my father.

I have mentioned that he is deceased, no? Very classy mother, very classy.

She regales Charlotte with a tearful story about how my father was so upset when as a teenager, I suddenly and without explanation began to kiss him goodnight less regularly. How Dad was so upset. Crushed. Driven to tears.

Nice to hear I was responsible for such heartbreak as an adolescent. Especially now that I am crowding in on 50 and not able to make amends with dad, if amends were in order in the first place. And especially since whatever Dad's feeling's on the matter, they weren't enough to compel him to say or do anything different with me.

I am fairly confident, no, uncommonly confident, that whatever teenage rebelliousness I might have been going through with my "She's a Maniac" legwarmers and my Dorothy Hamel haircut, I overcame and realigned at some point by the time I went off to college. Dad and I had a lovely relationship. We got each other. I am sure he didn't go to his grave wondering what he might have done to deserve such abandonment. Good grief, he gave me away at my wedding.

I dismiss this little complaint as simply an episode that mom remembers so vividly because she was not there to observe its resolution. It's hard to observe the frequent shifts in dynamics from another county where you've shacked up with someone else's throwaway husband.

And in my own defense, I blame Leanna Chuckwagon. She had the party where I met my prom date and drank my first beer from a tapped keg. And then began to keep a social calendar that included all manner of keg parties with garage bands and absentee parents. What better reason to skip the kiss goodnight than reeking like Michelob?

But the list would go on. Estelle was just scratching the surface with her jagged little nails.