Guess This

photo by Agne Kveselyte

Guess what’s in my inbox?  Guess!  No, wait!  I’ll just tell you.  My inbox contains an email from an honest to goodness children’s book author!  How cool am I?

At this point most of you are probably thinking, eh, not so cool.  My husband seemed less than impressed, especially seeing as his inbox is usually overflowing with hundreds of emails on a daily basis. 

“But how many of them are writers?”  I ask.

He shrugs and gets back to answering emails.

I am reminded of my youth and the frenzied passing of notes to girl friends in class (math class because like it would matter if I listened or not).  So, I’d write, “Guess who spoke to me at my locker just before class?  Guess!”

And they’d write, “Who?”

And I’d write back the name of whatever idiot boy we had all convinced ourselves was holier than God himself in a totally sexy kind of way. 

They’d respond, “NO WAY!”

“Yes way!” I’d scrawl proudly and slide the note across the aisle.

“WHAT DID HE SAY?”  They’d ask.  And then the teacher would look our way and we’d hide the note and look all studious and like we understood what she’d been saying (actually, I was the only one that had to pretend, my other girl friends were actually really good in math).  So we’d pretend we were listening, but would start daydreaming about fantastically romantic dates with this week’s boy-god.  Dates that involve long walks on beaches and beautifully lit fountains and candles and holding hands and throwing our heads back and laughing at how very clever and young and beautiful we are as a couple . . .

And I’d want to write something awesome like, “He says I’m the most amazing girl he knows, and he loves me for my intelligence, not because I developed earlier than the other girls, and he knows thirteen is young, but he’s sure that it is me he wants to marry.” 

I’d want to write something awesome like that, but instead, I’d answer honestly, “He wants to borrow my pre-calculus notes.”  Which should have been a huge tip off right there because I should have known that any guy stupid enough to borrow my math notes was not the brightest bulb in the chandelier. 

So, when my husband finished zinging off five hundred other emails, he took pity on me and asked, “So what does the email say?”

And I wanted to answer something awesome like, “It says that although he’s never heard of me prior to my signing up for his writing workshop, he just knows that I’m a hidden genius in the young adult literature world and he’s just made it his top priority to get my work in the hands of every young person for the next five generations, even though he really should be getting ready to promote his third novel which will be released shortly.”

I wanted to answer something awesome like that, but instead I answered honestly. 

“He says, ‘Hello Fellow Writers,’ and tells us where to meet for his class and that we should bring a notebook and pen/pencil.”

To which my dear husband nodded his head and said, “That’s nice.”

Yes, it is.  Because I’m the one with a real life children’s book author’s email in my inbox!