RULE #1
It’s Important to Try to Make Your Friends Feel Good About Themselves as Often as Possible. Then They’ll Like You Better
What’s amazing is how you can be a normal kid one day, and then something happens that completely changes your life.
I mean it. One minute you’re just an average, ordinary kind of girl…not boring, of course, because you’re good at math and science and an excellent big sister to two pretty horrible little brothers—not to mention a really good owner of a kitten, because you want to be a veterinarian someday—but not particularly amazing, either…and then something comes along that changes everything.
Not like aliens coming down in a spaceship and telling you that you are their long-lost queen and that they’ve been combing the galaxy looking for you for years and that that weird freckle on your elbow is actually a homing beacon and proves that you’re one of them.
And then they ask you to come back with them to planet Voltron, where everything is made out of candy and you will be the Voltrons’ leader and you’ll get to have a pet unicorn with wings and get to be a veterinarian without actually having to go through four years of college plus four years of veterinary school, plus an additional three- to four-year residency, the amount of time it takes to become a board-certified veterinarian on planet Earth.
Although that would be very, very cool.
But I mean, like your mom suddenly becoming a TV star.
And okay, my mom isn’t exactly a TV star.
“I just got a part-time job as the movie reviewer for that local cable show Good News! ” she explained that night when she got home from her other part-time job as a college adviser (she advises college students on what kind of classes to take. For instance, computer classes, which is what my dad teaches at the same college).
At first there was stunned silence when Mom said this. Because none of us even knew Mom was trying out for the job of movie reviewer on Good News! , which, by the way, is super famous. Not in the whole world, or anything. I mean, Grandma had never heard of it when she came to visit. Good News! is only on our local cable channel 4.
But still, it’s super famous in our town. My best friend Erica has even been on it. Good News! came to her gymnastics studio once and filmed everyone doing their routines before the big statewide gymnastics championship (which Erica wasn’t in but they showed her bringing chalk to a girl who was practicing for it and who came in twentieth).
And Erica’s big sister, Missy, has been on Good News! lots of times, because Missy is a majorette in the marching band at the middle school, and Good News! is always showing stuff like the local marching band competitions, and once even the pie-eating competition at the county fair, which Erica’s older brother, John, was in (only he got disqualified when Erica’s mom found out and told the judges he was underage).
Good News! comes on right after the regular news. It even stars one of the same newscasters as the regular news, Lynn Martinez. She just takes off the glasses she wears while doing the news, changes into a more sparkly shirt, messes up her hair, and suddenly, the regular news turns into Good News! at seven o’clock. So you can forget all about all the bad news you just heard and concentrate on the good news Lynn is about to tell you, like what restaurants are opening up in town, or what new plays you can see at the community theater, or about how the seniors down at the senior center are taking hip-hop dancing classes, or how somebody’s cat is nursing a poor orphan baby deer back to health, or how somebody else is having a sneaker drive to collect sneakers for poor people in Africa who can’t afford their own sneakers.
See? It’s all good news. That’s why they call it Good News!
And my mom was going to be on it! The best show on TV!
I know. Is that fantastic or what? I am the daughter of a
It’s Important to Try to Make Your Friends Feel Good About Themselves as Often as Possible. Then They’ll Like You Better
What’s amazing is how you can be a normal kid one day, and then something happens that completely changes your life.
I mean it. One minute you’re just an average, ordinary kind of girl…not boring, of course, because you’re good at math and science and an excellent big sister to two pretty horrible little brothers—not to mention a really good owner of a kitten, because you want to be a veterinarian someday—but not particularly amazing, either…and then something comes along that changes everything.
Not like aliens coming down in a spaceship and telling you that you are their long-lost queen and that they’ve been combing the galaxy looking for you for years and that that weird freckle on your elbow is actually a homing beacon and proves that you’re one of them.
And then they ask you to come back with them to planet Voltron, where everything is made out of candy and you will be the Voltrons’ leader and you’ll get to have a pet unicorn with wings and get to be a veterinarian without actually having to go through four years of college plus four years of veterinary school, plus an additional three- to four-year residency, the amount of time it takes to become a board-certified veterinarian on planet Earth.
Although that would be very, very cool.
But I mean, like your mom suddenly becoming a TV star.
And okay, my mom isn’t exactly a TV star.
“I just got a part-time job as the movie reviewer for that local cable show Good News! ” she explained that night when she got home from her other part-time job as a college adviser (she advises college students on what kind of classes to take. For instance, computer classes, which is what my dad teaches at the same college).
At first there was stunned silence when Mom said this. Because none of us even knew Mom was trying out for the job of movie reviewer on Good News! , which, by the way, is super famous. Not in the whole world, or anything. I mean, Grandma had never heard of it when she came to visit. Good News! is only on our local cable channel 4.
But still, it’s super famous in our town. My best friend Erica has even been on it. Good News! came to her gymnastics studio once and filmed everyone doing their routines before the big statewide gymnastics championship (which Erica wasn’t in but they showed her bringing chalk to a girl who was practicing for it and who came in twentieth).
And Erica’s big sister, Missy, has been on Good News! lots of times, because Missy is a majorette in the marching band at the middle school, and Good News! is always showing stuff like the local marching band competitions, and once even the pie-eating competition at the county fair, which Erica’s older brother, John, was in (only he got disqualified when Erica’s mom found out and told the judges he was underage).
Good News! comes on right after the regular news. It even stars one of the same newscasters as the regular news, Lynn Martinez. She just takes off the glasses she wears while doing the news, changes into a more sparkly shirt, messes up her hair, and suddenly, the regular news turns into Good News! at seven o’clock. So you can forget all about all the bad news you just heard and concentrate on the good news Lynn is about to tell you, like what restaurants are opening up in town, or what new plays you can see at the community theater, or about how the seniors down at the senior center are taking hip-hop dancing classes, or how somebody’s cat is nursing a poor orphan baby deer back to health, or how somebody else is having a sneaker drive to collect sneakers for poor people in Africa who can’t afford their own sneakers.
See? It’s all good news. That’s why they call it Good News!
And my mom was going to be on it! The best show on TV!
I know. Is that fantastic or what? I am the daughter of a
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