Yesterday was supposed to be Suggestion Sunday, but I moved it to today so that I could read a book in honor of George Washington's birthday yesterday (I don't know why I'm recapping as if you can't see yesterday's entry right below this one - Do you feel like your watching the first five minutes of a Monday episode of a soap opera with all the recapping?)
So today has temporarily become:
MOTHER MONDAY
My mother has chosen a romance novel for me to read today - or as I like to call them, smut books. She used to be offended when I would call them this, but now when I ask her, "Read any good smut lately?" she just smiles a little bit and launches into telling me about the plot of her latest book.
It seemed especially appropriate for me to read one of her trashy books because I'm the one who got her started reading them in the first place (oops). I started reading trashy novels when I was in junior high - and, lucky for me, no one even noticed for a few months. Adults would just look at me reading, smile, and say, "Isn't it nice that she's reading instead of watching television" - and no one would even bother to look and see what I was reading. Until one day when my luck ran out. I made the mistake of leaving a copy of the book I was reading on the coffee table just long enough for my mother to find it and start to read the first few pages . She was horrified, and quickly confiscated my entire trashy novel collection - and before she got around to throwing them away, she got hooked on them herself, and then quickly started reading books that were even trashier than the ones I was reading. I was reading the semi-trashy novels like Danielle Steele - and she prefers ones that are slightly trashier than that. And that's when I became a romance-novel-orphan. My mother began saying things like, "Just a minute I'm in a the middle of this chapter" when I would come home from school and want to tell her about my day (my Mother wants it on the record for all of you dear readers to witness, that she denies the aforementioned accusation) - and our conversations began to revolve around the latest exploits of Trisha, whose "real independent" and her nemesis-turned-lover Stefan who "seemed arrogant at first, but it turned out it was just because he'd been hurt in the past."
My sister couldn't figure what was so great about those books that she would want to walk around reading them all day - and I wanted to see how her really trashy novels compared to the semi-trashy ones I used to read - so we waited until she went out of town for a few days and read some of them. Woohoo, just a couple of wild and crazy young people - our parents went out of town for a few days and that's how we passed the time - not having a party or doing a bunch of stuff we weren't normally allowed to do, but reading a bunch of trashy novels. I still remember the plot of the book I read. It was a Christmas-themed book about a woman who was a 30-something pregnant virgin, who got pregnant using artificial insemination because she desperately wanted to be a mother but she had been burned so badly in the past that she vowed that she would never trust any man ever again. So she went into labor at a truck stuff, and a truck driver helped her deliver the baby in the back of his truck (isn't that the stupidest plot you've ever heard of), and somehow in the process he falls in love with her (because apparently there's nothing more attractive to a man than having a baby in the back of his truck), and then she spends about 100 pages resisting him until eventually giving in and realizing that he's all she's ever wanted. Then I read a second one - hoping that it wouldn't be as cheesy as the first one - about a woman who got pregnant during an earthquake by a guy whose name she didn't even know (isn't that classy), and so she couldn't contact him and tell him about the baby. Then, when she's 9 months pregnant, she's driving through a snow storm (classy and smart - she's got it all) when her car breaks down on the side of the road, and then she goes into labor - and just at that moment the father of her child just happens to come by on his tour bus (he's a rock star) and they find their way to a nearby cabin where he helps her deliver the baby (there seems to be a theme running through the books my mother reads). Neither one recognizes the other at first (classy, smart, and observant - the good qualities just keep on rolling) - but then they eventually realize who the other one is, and they start to bicker and then somewhere in the middle of the fight they realize that they're soul mates who can't live without one another (despite not actually knowing one anothers' names). After my mother got back from her trip, I questioned her about this book, and the conversation went like this:
Me: So you find this story Romantic.
Mom: Yes
Me: So if I came home and told you that I was pregnant by someone whose name I didn't even
know, who I met when I thought I was going to die, you would find that romantic.
Mom: Well of course not, the romantic part comes later.
Me: When? When they're in the cabin looking at their baby and they still don't know each others names? Or when they decide to get married in the middle of a screaming match? Where exactly is the romantic part?
Mom: I think that you just don't want to see it.
So I'm reading today's book in honor of Mom and the trashy novel habit that I accidentally started. Here's the description from the back of the book; "After being stripped of her wealth by a conniving con man, Sherry LaSalle may be down, but the suddenly broke socialite is far from out! She may not be used to having a job, but she's just landed the ideal position with sexy single dad Rafe Montoya. How hard could it be to take care of a pair of irresistible four-year-old twins? - The beautiful ex-heiress is the last person Rafe expected to bond with his orphaned niece and nephew. But Sherry is confounding the Harmony Circle mechanic with her down-to-earth, gingerbread-baking ways. She's clearly the perfect nanny for his kids. Is she also the woman Rafe wants and needs to complete their instant family?"
Lessons I've learned about love from reading this (and other) "romance" novel -
- When falling in love with someone, it's important to have a lot of fake conversations in your head in which you deny your love for that person, and in which you refer to them by their first and last name as often as possible, such as "I certainly won't be falling in love with Rafe Montoya, not in this lifetime" or "Stefan Mackenzie is exactly the kind of man I need to avoid at all costs." - Well, unless of course you're already pregnant with his baby and don't happen to know his last name . . . or his first name.
- Instant families are hot. If you happen to have just gained custody of your sister kids or if you're pregnant with someone else's baby, it will make you instantly more appealing to men (and not just any man, but an extremely attractive man who could have any woman he wants) - it will also make you more lovable.
- All great love stories (and I use the term great loosely here) start with two people who hate each other. So it's important to put your worst foot forward when meeting new people. If you can throw in a little arrogance, and a snotty comment or two, then you are guaranteed a happy ending.
Join me tomorrow dear readers, for a special book to celebrate Mardi Gras.
