The shortest distance between two points is a straight line.  I remember doing the proof.  Euclid lived in the theoretical world.  He might have had point A and point B all locked up, but he didn’t know diddly about planning.

My son and his friends went to see the movie 21 Jump Street.  Don’t get me started on remakes whose originals aired during my adulthood.

For the record, the movie is rated R.  My son is not 16.  I was fully aware of both facts before he set out for the evening.  I did check the content.  It’s nothing he doesn’t already know.  I did, however, assume that the parent who was driving them would buy the tickets.  I was wrong.  Their plan was to buy tickets to a PG-13 movie and sneak into the movie they really wanted to see.  Not my preferred method of entry.

Ethics aside, there were a limited set of options that evening within the time frame they wanted.  The first was John Carter, lame but believable, or the more socially acceptable Hunger Games–on opening day.  My son is no idiot, I’ll give him that.  He gets it from me.  He knows that if they buy tickets to Hunger Games, they will be corralled into a waiting area with all of the other teens that actually want to see Hunger Games, and won’t be able to sneak into another theater.  My son read the book, but had zero interest in seeing the movie.  He explained why they needed to buy tickets to John Carter, but given the possibility of peer scrutiny, his friends insisted they buy tickets to Hunger Games instead.  Image won out over reason.

We started getting texts from our son as soon as the probably became reality.

i said  john carter but NOOOOOOO  what an idiot. hes reading this  ur a IDIOT

I knew he meant it.  He used capital letters.

I thought you were seeing 21 Jump Street?

I’m a writer. I spell out words and punctuate correctly, even when texting.  Do I have to mention that I hate autocorrect?  Didn’t think so.

hunger games

because hes an IDIOT  hes still reading this

He’s screwed and we both know it.  This is when you have to look at the bright side.  Really, how awful could this be?

It’s supposed to be good.  Just enjoy it.

Not a chance.

I refuse

He was committed to being miserable.  Rather than watching the movie, he sat in the back row, on a Friday night with his friends, TEXTING HIS PARENTS.

This sucks

Still sucks

if ur wondering still sucks

Of course, we were just as stupid texting back.

TURN OFF YOUR PHONE BEFORE SOMEONE KICKS YOU OUT

Oh.  Got it.  He didn’t get his wish.  He stayed until the end.

Sometimes he’s so like me, it’s scary. If I set my mind on something, I’m hard to move.  But what would happen if I could not only accept, but embrace Plan B?  To treat it as the Plan A I just hadn’t thought to consider?

Take this blog, for instance.  I’m a novelist, I don’t write about myself.  We’ll, okay, I do, but I change the names to protect the guilty.  I joined a platform challenge which required me to start a blog, so like the dutiful student that I am, I started a blog.  Blogging was not the plan.  I didn’t want to write about writing, or about books, so I wrote about me.  I was feeling introspective at the time.  Next thing I knew, I’d put my personal thoughts out into the ether.  I shared details about my life that I’d kept private for a long time.

I now blog every day.  I launched a second blog for my haiku three weeks ago.  I’ve guest blogged, and interviewed people, and  it’s been an incredible experience. I love exchanging ideas and thoughts with readers.  I could grouse that this takes time from my writing, but it is my writing, and every word I write makes the next word richer, and every exchange builds the story.

Plan A, meet Plan A, the addendum. But trust me, that novel is still coming someday.

How well do you deal with changes in the plan?  Tell me–let’s talk about it.

Words by J. B. Everett

Photograph by Steve Jurvetson