The If Question with all the sneaky.

It’s been a few weeks since I’ve done an If Question, and so I thought what better way to try to find my mojo again than to bring it back. Let’s try to find our my groove again, shall we? Here we go:

If you had to serve in the military, what role would you want to serve (that you haven’t already performed)?

It’s so rare that the If Question is so easy for me to answer: I would be a spy. (I guarantee you that both my sisters and half of my friends said at exactly the time: That’s easy, she would be a spy.) See, I’ve always had a thing for spying and sneakiness and covert operations and secret clubs. What little kid doesn’t go through that phase? Except mine never really ended. I’m not saying I ever really spied maliciously on any one…I just liked being in the know when we were growing up. I’d try to listen in on my mom’s phone conversations my hanging up…and then picking up the extension with the mute button on. Or I’d crack my bedroom door open to see what was going on downstairs. I’d listen at my sister’s (and brother’s) door to see if anything interesting was going on. Don’t even get me started on the tricks my cousin Jonathan and I would get up to.

I tried to instill the same skill set in my sisters. I did it to be nice and big-sisterly, but mostly I needed more trained operatives to carry out my field work. One of our favorite family stories is about the time that we were trying to figure out what our parents were fighting about and whether they were talking about divorce. I had already tried listening in from the top of the stairs and had been sent to the room I shared with Kim. So I had to send her out on a recon mission. She wasn’t even supposed to know that they were having a discussion, so I told her to go downstairs under the pretence of going to the bathroom. Twenty-freakin’-long-minutes later, she comes back up to our room with a bowl of cheese balls and a happy-go-lucky air about her. “Well, what did you find out?” I asked as soon as she walked through the door. “Huh?” she paused, mid-bite. “About Mom and Dad!” I retorted. “I was supposed to be listening?” she asked. ::headdesk::

Yes, so it has taken lots and lots (and lots and lots) of training and patience on my end, but I think I have finally cultivated a superior unit of stealthy, sneaky spies. My sisters are highly skilled operatives now (Kim even executed a super-stealthy surprise visit for my birthday last year, if you’ll remember). We’re even thinking about drafting Crisanna, but I don’t know. She might be too inherently kind. Still. I think if I can convert Kim, anyone is possible.

And I guess it’s a good thing that I’ve always wanted to be a spy, because you know what? I never for one minute thought I’d have to use so many of my spy skills as a mom! There’s Christmas and secret conversations and grown-up stuff and all kinds of things that need to be kept hidden. My kids are very intuitive – and now that Gracie is learning to read and spell, I can’t even spell words out when I’m talking about things I don’t want her to know. Guess it’s time to break out the codewords and secret decoder ring.

Huh. I wonder if that is part of the standard military spy uniform.

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Tags: If question, If Questions, nostalgia