Nova Says the Darndest Things

Nova: Did Sissa Jones have her baby?
Suzanne: Yeah, she did!
Nova: What it is?
Suzanne: It's a little boy.
Nova (obviously disappointed): Oh, that's to bad.
Suzanne: Why?
Nova: Boys are so boring!

On a separate occasion, we were at a reception when Nova said she needed to "go kinkles," which is her way of saying she needs to use the restroom. I asked her where Suzanne was, and Nova replied that she was already in the bathroom herself. So I told Nova I'd take her and headed to the boy's restroom.

Things went as they always had during the hundreds of other times I've taken her to the bathroom. After we had washed her hands and were on our way out, she looked up at me with a confused expression and asked, "Where's mom?" I thought, "You know the answer to that; you're the one who told me she was in the bathroom," but I thought no more of it and simply replied, "She's in the girl's bathroom."

Later it would become apparent that she asked this because she was genuinely confused. She thought we were in the girl's bathroom and so, logically, she should have seen her mom.

As I walked out, I heard some sniffling behind me. Confused, I turned to find Nova's face slowly dissolving into an expression of abject woe. She let out a piercing, mournful wail and melted to the floor in the most dramatic fashion possible.

I immediately assumed that she was hurt, that she had caught her fingers in the door or something. I had often heard her cry, but seldom with such despair in her voice. It was loud, and the cries echoed down the white brick halls of the church.

I stood her up and asked what was wrong. She brought her head up to look at me with eyes that clearly communicated a feeling of anguish as well as a distinct sense of having been betrayed. She choked back a sob and bawled, "You took me in the boy's bathroom!"

She collapsed back into a puddle of tears and sobs while everything suddenly came together in my mind. I desperately wanted to tell her that I had no malicious intent, but I found that all I could do was laugh. Her pathetic display coupled with a genuine misunderstanding and the sheer absurdity of it all caught me as irresistibly hilarious. I fought it, I tried to choke down the guffaws, but just as she looked up to see what all the gurgling sounds were for I belted out an enormous laugh right in her face.

As the combined sounds of an unjustifiably loud laugh and an equally over-the-top cry echoed down the hall, she tried to communicate just why this crime was so heinous to a father that quite obviously wanted to destroy her life. "I was wearing a dress in there!" she wailed in absolute horror. Then, emphasizing each word, she nearly screamed, "I almost died!"

Well, you can imagine just how hard it was not to laugh at that. And I'm sad to say that I also crumpled to the ground giggling like a Primary boy who has just tied Sally's braids to her chair. I couldn't stop, and poor Nova thought that I was reveling in her pain. She gave me a look that said, "I will never forgive you for this."

That sobered me up a little, only because I didn't think I would get that particular look until she was 16 and I had just told her prom date the most embarrassing story I knew about her. But even that couldn't stop me from hissing laughter through my teeth as I desperately tried to clench my jaw and hold a straight face.

Of course, Nova's screams could be heard throughout the church, and several people, family and strangers alike, came rushing to see who had lost a limb. Instead they found a poor little girl crying as if she had just watched Cinderella suffer a grisly death, and her father fairly crying as well, but from the gut-wrenching laughter.

This didn't win me any friends.

And now there are several members of the Jerome community (as well as their in-laws) who think I am a horrible person who delights in torturing little girls. They're half right; I mean, you can bet I'll be telling Nova's prom date about this.