My friend's parents were leaving for Mexico in a week-- if she could just keep her secret until then. Once they were thousands of miles away, then, and only then, would she reveal the secret. In the meantime, she wore long sleeved shirts and kept parental contact to a minimum.
When her parents arrived in Mexico, as expected, they called home.
"Hi. We got here safe."
"That's good. Er, a, ummm, Mom?"
"Yes?"
I have something to tell you."
"I'm listening."
"I got a tattoo."
Silence.
After two weeks of drinking pina coladas poolside and indulging in daily siestas, the parents returned home and didn't say a word about the tattoo. The exact outcome, their daughter had calculated and strategized to achieve. The dragon indelibly tattooed on her arm was safe from scrutiny, repercussion, restriction and slaying.
I've come to understand that most children have strategies to deal with a parent's potential disappointment and anger.
For my little sister and me, it was elmer's glue.
Playing kickball in the living room was taboo for all the obvious reasons, but especially since the Swiss wood carvings with delicate deer horns or a hiker's hat with a thin wood feather, were the decorations. The first time the ball hit a deer, knocked it over and broke an antler, I thought I would surely die at my mother's hand. Not wanting to die, I did my best to glue it back. I waited for discovery and punishment like it was Damocles' sword hanging by the hair of a horse's tail.
But retribution never came; our strategy had worked, and it appeared to have worked for my mother too. Years later, when we moved Mom after thirty years in the same house, I discovered that most of the delicate wood shapes had been glued in one way or another, and I'm betting Dad never knew.
I also had another strategy for concealing tragedies from my parents. On the occasion of my second vehicular mishap, (when I hit a pole driving through an empty parking lot), I came home late so I wouldn't have to tell Dad. He woke up early, so he went to bed early. I also pulled the car as far into the driveway so he was less likely to notice the misplaced bumper. But few things got past Dad--especially the condition of his daughters' cars.
Un-beknownest to me, Dad had his own strategies.
The next morning Mom awakened me with the dreaded words, "Your father's on the phone."
Truly nervous, I said, "Hello."
"How many strikes does a baseball player get before he's out?"
"Three?"
"That's right. You have two. Understand?"
"Yes."
His strategy worked. I never got in another accident again. Unless you count the time...