Instant Karma

As a parent you learn to at least try to be patient with your children. You listen to their woes, you dispense advice, however you are often dismissed. So it goes.

Last week I had the rare opportunity to feel a bit of vindication as a mom in the dismissal category. My middle child was assigned an independent reading project for her English class. She was to choose a novel from an assigned list that the teacher had given. We reviewed the list together, we chose a novel, she informed her teacher of the choice, and I advised her to get the book from the library. This is where the dismissing part comes in…

Yes, my child was born a procrastinator. She never went to get the book. She put it off, and put it off continually. Imagine that. As time was beginning to become short, I looked for it myself in the school library, but it was not on the shelf. So last week she finally went to the public library to check out the book, Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austin. Her sister took her to the local branch of the public library and waited for her to get the book.

She searched the electronic catalogue and was thrilled to see that there was one last copy available. Alas! She jotted down the numbers and headed to the shelf to retrieve it. As she approached the shelf her glee transitioned into disappointment as she scanned the numbers and her eyes came to rest on the book in question.

Now, let me tell you. When my child entered the door of the house with this book I practically fell over from laughter. Karma is a wonderful thing sometimes. She came into the house, looking very dejected with the most monstrously huge novel I have ever seen in my life. It turns out that the only copy the library had left on the shelf was a picture book version of the book within an anthology of six Jane Austin novels. While the book has the full version of the text of Pride and Prejudice, this thing looks like it weighs about thirty pounds. I could not help but laugh.

I am such a mean mother. I just hope that she learns a little lesson about procrastination from lugging a humongous book around while trying to read it. I told her, amid loud guffaws of laughter, that this happened because she did not listen to her mother.

Maybe she will learn… Just maybe…