And for Our Next Book – Captain Underpants and the Perilous Plot of Professor Poopypants

Beth died last night.  She was supposed to die tonight, but my hard-hearted husband hastened her departure by going to bed early.  Of course, he did not know that he was killing Beth by doing this.  And the alternative would have just prolonged the inevitable.  But still.

I had put off preparing for the death because I thought I would have more time.  But Cap’n Firepants threw the zinger at me at our daughter’s bed time that he was pretty exhausted, and could I please read tonight?  He stepped back from me a bit when I acted like he had just asked me to climb the roof at midnight and clean up squirrel poop.  Generally, I jump at the chance for an extra night to read to our daughter.  But I dreaded the chapter that I knew was next.

Cap’n Firepants reads a different book with Dimples, so he can be forgiven for not knowing that he had just asked me to walk into the Valley of Death.  And, I am sure that he would point out that I was the one who picked the book in the first place.

It’s just that I did not realize that Beth’s death in Little Women would occur while I am still in mourning over the approximately one hundred and thirteen people who perished in Les Miserables.  I am still reeling from that massacre, and the repercussions of its soundtrack, and now I had to add one more body to the pile.

Plus, Dimples and I had just recently had our class picture argument, and I was pretty sure that reading an entire chapter to her about the death of a beloved character was not going to endear me any more to her.  She makes it a point to avoid sappy death scenes in books, and I had kind of tricked her into this one.

Of course, Dimples handled it much better than I did.  She is not a middle-aged mother fighting depression and haunted by visions of Anne Hathaway dreaming a dream as she is dying in a filthy street in Paris.  And, I think that it is entirely possible that she would be happy with all of the characters being killed off as I have probably referred to these paragons of virtue a little too often. (“Do you think Beth would complain if her mother asked her to clean the toilet?  Do you think Beth even had a toilet?”)

Fortunately, she has not compared me to Marmee, yet.  Because we all know how that Battle of the Moms would shake out.

So, at the end of the day I cried more than she did.  And that night, I dreamed my dear daughter was in the hospital dying from the flu.

I try not to censor my daughter’s reading, but I’m beginning to think someone should probably censor mine.

Now that I think about it, guess which one of us cried more for the Velveteen Rabbit?

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