Friday, March 7, 2008

A Year From Now

The husband could not stop lecturing. The trapped teenager sat in the back seat of the car and politely listened, albeit with a somewhat detached, 13 year old, aloof air about her. The car trip home from middle school basketball practice had turned into a Politics 101 lesson. When the husband and the teenager walked in the front door, the political lesson did not stop. Finally, only when the husband saw pork chops on the dinner table, did he began to wrap up his opinionated political diatribe. The boy had the naive nerve to prolong the one sided conversation by asking a loaded question about… Hillary.

“Well, I just don’t think I could ever vote for Hillary.” the husband responded. “I just don’t think she’s electable.”

“But, “the boy continued, “what if Hillary showed up on your porch right now and personally asked you for your vote? Would that make a difference?”

The husband and I and the teenager laughed out loud at how preposterous that was. The husband answered with a chuckle. “Oh son, first of all Hillary doesn’t give a hill of beans about me. And second of all, there’s no way she’d ever show up on my porch.” The family had a good laugh about that. For 23 seconds. Give or take a few seconds.

And then the phone rang.

The computer caller ID voice on the phone announced out loud who the phone call was from. The phone range twice and then the computer voice began to speak.

“Call from…..CLINTON….HILLARY. Call from….CLINTON…HILLARY.”

The family froze. I put down my fork. The husband put down his pork chop. The children’s faces went pale. In total spooked shock, we let it ring. The 8 year old boy spoke first. “Whoooaaaa. She’s good. She gets my vote!”

We never did answer the phone. When we played the message back it was a personal recorded message from Hillary inviting us to her local rally that night. If we couldn’t make it, she hoped we would trust in her experience. She wanted to personally ask us to vote for a better America, by voting for Hillary.

In the next year our country will vote for a new president. A year from now…where will our country stand?


The staff at Slightly Exaggerated is proud to celebrate our first anniversary of blogging the Slightly Exaggerated way. Staffers have been reviewing the past year’s worth of blogs and making notes for future blogs. A year ago we had no idea what would transpire and inspire us to write a blog every week or so. Life took many unexpected, unplanned and sometimes, even amusing turns. Much of it was captured in words, some slightly exaggerated, some raw and real. And as we look forward to our second year, we here at Slightly Exaggerated ask ourselves and you the question: A year from now…where will we be?

A year from now my suburbia will have continued to struggle with stagnant home sales, rising gas prices and tolerance and diversity toward others. A year from now…what will my town be like?

A year from now the husband will have most likely completed his 500 horsepower, uses only expensive racing gas, 1969 Camaro. A year from now… will his dream monstrosity actually work as well as he has planned it to?

A year from now the teenager will be in junior high and will be well on her journey to separate from me and become more independent. A year from now…will I even know who she is?

A year from now the boy will have had another year of spouting forth words I need to look up in the dictionary on our way to Urgent Care for yet another injury. A year from now…will he still have all of his appendages?

A year from now the cats will have figured out new ways to open child proofed cabinets, will have practiced unique ways to annoy me in the middle of the night and will have discovered how to, yet again, steal my dinner straight from my plate. A year from now…will I have let them live?

A year from now I will be an almost 40 year old blog writer searching for paying jobs, lamenting the new fat rolls on my stomach and over analyzing my 20 year marriage. A year from now…will I be happy?

A year from now my country, my town, my husband, my children, my cats, me and every one of you out in this Slightly Exaggerated world will be another year older. A year from now…where will we be?


I was visiting my online grief group the other day, sadly remembering my mother’s passing this past October. As I read each person’s comment in the chat room, I became a bit frustrated with how negative they were. And then it hit me. For once, I was not the saddest, most messed up person in that chat room. In fact, those people were depressed, some of them severely so. I knew I wasn’t like them. I wasn’t even remotely close to feeling like they did. I realized that when I hung out with them online, they made me feel worse. I didn’t want to feel worse. In fact, I was very much looking forward to feeling better. In the past, there was some comfort in dwelling on my mother’s death. As sad and depressing as it was, at least I still felt like I had a part of her close to me. But, not now. Now, I was finally ready to move on. I didn’t want to be in that chat room anymore. I didn’t want to be sad anymore. That realization came as a shock to me. After so many long months, I could finally see that I had made progress.

A year ago my mother wasn’t even sick. A year from now…? Well, it just goes to show you that you never know where you’ll be a year from now.


Check This Out!

The Slightly Exaggerated board of directors have recently enjoyed the music of Buckcherry, a whole jar of spicy green salsa and the movie MASH from 1970, none of which should ever be enjoyed in the presence of children.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

A year from now...I'll be checking Slightly Exaggerated for new posts!

KK in LC

Anonymous said...

A year from now... I'll also be checking for new posts, and Obama will be president!

Storyteller said...

We love the boy but tell him that we are glad he can't vote! For confirmation on that please visit: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23519392/ We are so enjoying your blogs...keep up all the wonderful writing!

Storyteller said...

mrs. dills - where the %#$* did that come from!!

Anonymous said...

Oh that was classic ! I can just picture all the faces ! I forwarded onto Jeff, cause I know he and Xian will enjoy the laugh!

You know what I love best, all the great conversation that this years exciting/frustrating race is bringing to many dinner tables. Your bored 'teen' might have been ready to drop, but the hubby and sons convo replicates the ones happening at my house. So much so, when Xian's teacher said 'its african awareness month - you each have to write an oral report on a famous black person' - Xian chose Barack. I LOVE it !!

I look forward to 12 more months of 'slightly exaggerated'...

VK