If only my family could understand

[Plaid Adder]

I called my family last night to tell them about the DU book (because I dedicated it to my father). They know about the column, but they are very confused about anything that has to do with the Internet, so they can't really keep things straight in their minds. I did manage to impress upon them that the book is print-on-demand and will not be sold in Barnes & Noble. They were excited anyway.

So I get this email from my mother this morning saying that Dad is "very happy about the dedication of the Snake Pit."

I about burst out laughing. The title is *Snake Bites,* but hey, close enough...and anyway, "snake pit" is a pretty good description of the Bush administration.

C ya,

The Plaid Adder

[Bouncy Ball]

1. How cute!!!

Aren't parents cute sometimes? You just want to pinch their cheeks.

[Cooley Hurd]

2. "...the dedication of the snake pit"

Do your parents think you've started a reptile farm of some sort?:D

[Plaid Adder]

3. Yeah, I know--plus how does one dedicate a snake pit?

Do you break a bottle of champagne over it, or what?

The Plaid Adder

[mongo]

4. Could be worse -

my mom describes my business as "selling toxic waste".

Thanks mom - glad you're proud of me. I takes no determination at all to go into busness for yourself.

[Jessica]

5. That's cute ... sounds like something my parents would say.

My mom still doesn't grasp the concept of those crazy debit cards. Congrats on the book, BTW. :)

[hfojvt]

6. I suppose that means

I cannot get you to sign copies at my bookstore.
Alas, I no longer have a bookstore, or I could try to sell copies there, and I would. Of course the operative word is try since I never had more than $17,000 in annual sales. But I did sell about twelve copies of Scott Nearing's book "The Good Life" which is probably not in the average Barnes and Noble. Sometimes if you stock it, they will buy.

[CornField]

7. You and I could trade stories!

Like the time, after my mom died, that we took my dad to the bank to open his own checking account. The banker asked him how much money he wanted to deposit and Dad pulled off his boots, presenting the almost $10,000 that he kept there.

Or maybe like the time my mom and dad cleaned a rental property for a family friend and discovered a bong. They weren't sure what it was, but they knew it wasn't something you wanted to be seen carting down Main Street. So, they put it in a paper grocery sack and brought it home. Then they ushered all of us kids into the kitchen, closed all the curtains and showed it to us. (Like any of us were silly enough to admit that we knew what it was!)

Just rest comfortable in the knowledge that one day we will be able to provide our own children (or the neighbor's children) with stories just as amusing for them to share with friends.

Congratulations on the book & thanks for sharing your writings with all of us.

[Plaid Adder]

9. $10,000 in the boots! That's pretty good.

Although the bong story is destined to become the real classic, I think. I don't know that my parents have anything that can compete with that.

There is the time my father convinced my aunt that there was a goat farm in Brooklyn that he was using as a tax shelter by buying a goat, raising it for a year, then killing it to make his goatskin boots and writing off the goat's death as a business loss. She believed him, despite the story's suspicious similarity to another yarn he had told us about his lizardskin belt.

C ya,

The Plaid Adder

[Heidi]

8. It's OK, Plaid Adder.

Be who you are, and do what you do, for you and for your own survival. Our families' nutty ways of showin' us love is something we can't control.

Besides, I think print-on-demand is more of a conscious, informed choice than, "Oh, here I am in the bookstore and I'll put this book on my VISA because I'm bored, but I'll probably never read it."