This school year is going great so far-- it's just been super busy with helping my dad with his move and acclimating to Western New York from Southern California. So I disappeared a bit.
I had a parent call last week that was awkward to begin with, and the mom I talked to was saying how her son was pushing for more independence, and it was hard because she's been a single mom and they'd been a tight unit forever.
Then she said, "do you have kids?"
And I said, "no." Silence. "It didn't work out for me." Pause.
Then she said, "Do you have cats?"
AND I HAD A MOMENT OF UTTER MORTIFICATION. Did she ask me if I had CATS and I just kept on how I can't have kids???
So of course, being the queen of awkward, I expressed as much."Oh my god, did you ask me if I had cats and I just told you personal info you didn't ask for???" (Okay, floor, just swallow me up. Right now. Blerghhhhh.)
She laughed and said no, she asked about kids but her son told her I had cats, and he loves cats, and they consider cats part of the family, and so it moved in a less awkward direction.
Good gracious. Thankfully it seemed to be much more memorable to me than to her. Sigh. At least there wasn't the usual trite follow up questions or comments... I'll take "do you have cats" as a response any day!