We went camping with some friends and were sitting around the campfire when my sixteen-year-old daughter left to use the bathroom. She was gone for a few minutes when it occurred to me that I should have gone with her. After all, it was dark; we were in the woods; the campground was relatively sprawling. Who knows what could happen in a setting like this?
Minutes passed before my daughter returned. “Did you get raped?” I asked.
She rolled her eyes in pure female fashion and exhaled in a why-am-I-cursed-with-such-a-weird-mom kinda way. “No,” she replied. “I did not get raped.”
“Well, good. I was just thinking maybe I should have gone with you. It’s dark and wooded.”
Eventually my fourteen-year-old son left to use the restroom. When he returned I was standing at the picnic table. He stood next to me and for several seconds we quietly assembled s’ mores until he commented, “I didn’t get raped either; thanks for asking.”
I giggled.
“I’m glad you are so concerned about my rapablily,” he said. “I am highly rapable, you know.”
stories for my mom 