Mischief Managed.

A few days ago, my mother was once again pillaging for non-existent weaponry and drug paraphernalia under the pretense of "cleaning my room and looking for things to donate." She found a little note I left her in high school, a picture of which (below) she sent me from her Droid, which is disturbing considering she recently asked me how to copy and paste. 

After following the arrow prompting her to flip the card over, my shocked mother had read a post-script I had written along the lines of:

P.S. Mom, none of that is true. I just wanted to remind you that I could do worse things than skip a little school, the detention slips for which you need to sign. They're in the blue folder on my desk. Love ya! You looked radiant today. Call me when it's safe to come home. Forever your little girl, Maura

Just a junior in high school, I was known to have pulled a couple Ferris Buellers every now and then. The disciplinary action came when I bumped into my theology teacher, who had called in sick that Friday, at the Phillies' World Series parade. He was such a Principal Rooney. 

You may be wondering if this artful manipulation of context surrounding my unexcused absences worked. It did not. There's only so much perspective a fabricated context can give. I was hoping the emotional roller coaster inching up to fear, plunging through disappointment, and looping several times through disgust and horror would provide a flattering comparison to getting a few detentions. In hindsight, my mother has told me since my first day on this planet that I would be disowned if I ever a) dyed my hair, b) got anything but my ears pierced, or c) got a tattoo. Focusing on these three methods of aesthetic disobedience could have perhaps had a stronger effect.

This isn't the only time I've used rhetoric to exonerate myself from the various instances of mischief I've accomplished. There's that time I pretended to be devastated when I got my first speeding ticket so my mom would console me, forgetting about the fine and pending court date. Or the time I acted uninterested in the case of Corona she foolishly left in the garage before Senior Week. Sometime it works, sometimes it doesn't. I had plenty of time to think about it in the additional detention she petitioned the school to give me.