Take my friend Karla, for example. She learned this the hard way, when I wandered into her kitchen, as she sat across the breakfast table from her daughter Tina.
"Don't get up, Karla," I said, opening the screen door and letting myself in, as she continued a rather animated conversation with her daughter Tina.
"You mean you're going to Las Vegas without me?" Tina spluttered. "You mean you and Daddy are going to take a trip 450 miles from home, and you're not going to take me? You mean you're going to leave your own flesh and blood daughter in the clutches of a babysitter?"
"Hands, not clutches," Karla interjected. "The sitter has very competent hands with which she'll fix your meals, get you off to school each morning, and see that you have plenty to do."
"And at night she'll make me languish alone in my room watching shadows on the wall, while you and Daddy enjoy the bright lights in another country!"
"Another country? Since when is Las Vegas another country?"
"Since Daddy said it was. Just yesterday Daddy said, 'Las Vegas is another country--a foreign one!'
"Just think of all the educational benefits you'll be depriving me of if you go to a foreign country without me."
"Depriving you of educational benefits? I guess that's what we did when we took you to Mexico and Canada this year! Not to mention Disneyland.
"Your dad and I deserve a little time on our own.
"Depriving you? That's one guilt trip I'm just not going to take."
"Oh, yes you are," Tina exalted. "And you'll go on that one without me, too!"
