The Dark Underbelly of Harry Potter

As I mentioned before, over the past month I have been pleading, arguing, and cajoling my sister Michele to give her copy of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix to me, a true Harry Potter fan, instead of my bandwagon sister Tina, although Michele did promise to lend Tina the book first.

After a fortuitous mishap with Michele's move from L.A. that required her to use my services, I was able to secure the treasured tome on the condition that I refrain from mentioning our backdoor deal to Tina, who, although as an H.P. pretenda has no real reason to gripe, would do her equivalent of a Howler (punching me and Michele in the stomach) if she found out. (Actually, it's mostly punching me. She likes punching me better than Michele for some reason. I suppose it is my four daily sit-ups.)

Although I joked about telling Tina about the deal, I wasn't planning on doing it. Okay, I was planning on doing it, but I wasn't planning on doing it today. I wanted to finish the book first before alerting her and risking it being stolen before I was done. Then I got this call from my Mom:

MOM: "It's me."
JASON: "Hi Mom."
MOM: "I'm going to blow the whole lid off your operation."
JASON: "What?"
MOM: "I'm writing an email to Tina telling her all about what you and Michele planned."
JASON: "You can't do that."
MOM: [laughing, clapping hands] "Yes I can! It's all written. I just have to press send."
JASON: "Just give me a few hours. I want to call and read her the first page. It'll be funny."
MOM: [glum] "Okay. I'll give you until morning."

I mention this story in case any of you ever come in contact with any member of my family (sans me). If you do, do not ever, ever, ever tell them a secret or any fact even remotely related. ESPECIALLY anything related to birthday or Christmas presents.

In fact, don't even let on that you know a secret. They (okay, occasionally me too) will use a series of extremely clever and almost unresistable secret-breaking devices, such as "What if I die tonight?" and the classic, "You distract him / lock him in the bathroom while I search his room for our presents."

This is not an exaggeration. The night before Mother's Day, Mom asked if she could have her presents now. Tina said no. Mom said, "What if I die tonight? Won't you feel guilty that I died and I didn't get my presents before I went?" Tina's mouth dropped in shock. Our dad passed away when we are young, and all of us have a lingering fear that our Mom will leave us just as suddenly as Dad did. I laughed. I never knew Mom could hit so hard below the belt.

And the best part is, Mom couldn't care less about the $20 shirt that we got her. She just wants to get it when she's not supposed to. We all do. Michele could be happy getting a ball of tape as a present as long as it is expertly wrapped and she got it a day early by listening to Tina mumble away its secret hiding place the night before in her sleep.

(I wasn't planning on getting into this much detail. I already have a few more paragraphs I'm not going to post yet. It'll be in a future column.)