Happy that she played a role in my embarrassing story from yesterday's blogpost, my sister Julie has challenged me to write that, one time, about two years ago, I accidentally put a can of Bud Light into Margot's school lunch, thinking it was Polar Selzer. In my defense, it was really early in the morning, the two products have the same blue can, and I grabbed it hastily from a low lying crisper drawer, where seltzer lives in our refrigerator.  This could have happened to anybody, even a morning person, like me.  

Margot called me as Julie and I were driving up to Boston. "Mom, you put a Bud in my lunch," she said, and I heard her friends laugh. As I soaked that in, she hung up hastily because she had to get to her next class. Then I panicked because Margot's high school has a zero tolerance policy for drugs and alcohol. And any news of on-premises beer can leak quickly in a small school. So for her own good, and because I have an irrational fear of juvie, I felt obligated to call the principal and turn Margot in.

I was actually turning myself in, but in any case, it was kind of a big deal.  The beverage that had started out the day as a can of seltzer, then morphed into a can of light beer, was now liquid crack cocaine. Margot was called into the office and then sent to her locker to collect the contraband and turn it in.  And though they weren't mad at her, a lock down situation is stressful and not something you want to be the cause of. When I saw her later that day, she said that she wasn't mad at me and that it wasn't too much of an ordeal, except for the cavity search for the other five beers.

When the principal called me to ask if I wanted to come in and collect the beer, I declined sheepishly, saying, "No, really, this one's on me."