Jennifer Brown

Dad: Your step-mom and I read your short story.

Me: Oh yeah?

Dad: We each had radically different interpretations of what it meant.

Me: What it meant?

Dad: Uh-huh. She said the main character was clearly insane and that the story was about him surrendering to his insanity. In the end, when he falls into the snowglobe to be with the mermaid... she said that was a metaphor for him just letting himself go insane.

Me: Insanity, huh?

Dad: But I told her she's wrong. The mermaid represented the Mindy/Mandy character and when he fell into the snowglobe, it was about the main character falling in love with the Mindy/Mandy character. In the end he let himself fall in love with her.

Me: Riiiiiight.

Dad: So who's right? What was it really about?

Me: Um... it was... about a guy... who fell into a snowglobe... that had... a mermaid in it...

Dad: But what did it represent?

Me: Snowglobe. Mermaid.

Dad: Oh.

Me: Actually, the insane thing? Yeah, I like that. We'll say it was all about that. Yeah. Yeah, I was totally going for the insanity angle. Totally makes me sound smart.

...well... until now.