In the second half of the first chapter of “How Lovely Are Thy Branches,†the kids navigate the treacherous terrain of ASKING PARENTS FOR PERMISSION. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to read Young Wizards.Â
THIS IS THE CONTENT I SIGNED UP FOR. I was deeply amused by this because I recognize, at its core, what Duane has tapped into here: that terrible fear of asking your parents for permission to do something. Obviously, that was an exaggerated experience for someone like me, who only successfully got permission from their parents like… twice? Maybe three times ever. Oh, I tried, y’all. I attempted many different techniques, such as:
- The appeal to reason
- Appeals to emotions
- Asking things so casually that it didn’t seem like a big deal at all because I was expecting a no, but secretly, this was a TRICK to get them to say yes.
- Doing lots of nice things before asking.
- Waiting until they were about to leave the house
- Waiting until I was about to leave the house.
- Portraying something as necessary to my education
You get the idea. I failed at pretty much all of these, though it took time in junior high for me to finally realize that my problem wasn’t in my technique, but in the end result. My mother simply wasn’t going to let me do anything for any reason. The one time I had a friend over was in seventh grade, and that was because it was mandatory that we work with someone on a project outside of class. My mother refused to let me go to my friend’s class, so she had to come to mine. I swear to you, my mother told my friend’s mother that she didn’t trust any of them TO THEIR FACES!!!
Anyway, even if I never found the success that Nita, Kit, and Carmela do here, I completely knew what Duane was writing about in this chapter. Kit and Nita’s play-by-play was hilarious, too, because any of you who have other siblings probably recognize the same song-and-dance. Isn’t it deeply amusing when a sibling misreads a situation and asks permission terribly? FEW THINGS ARE MORE ENJOYABLE.
That being said: THERE’S GONNA BE A HUGE PARTY AT THE RODRIGUEZ HOUSE. Part of me wants Darryl’s parents to be there because we’ve spent so little time with them, and I’d like to know them more, but I appreciated the conversation had about him. (I HOPE HE MAKES IT.) But the sheer weirdness of this get-together is made better by the fact that this is the first of its kind at the Rodriguez home. We know how Nita’s did dealt with this conundrum in A Wizard’s Holiday, but what about Kit’s and Carmela’s parents? Will Helena come home for Christmas? PLEASE LET HER BE THERE. How can she believe in mutants if she meets actual aliens?
Like Carmela, I am very excited for this party.
https://youtu.be/uqg9N6hw-9U
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