This is what I heard happening in the stall next to mine in the Barnes & Noble bathroom:

“Honey, when you do that your hair goes into the toilet.”

“I’m sorry, Mom.”

“You don’t have to be sorry, I just want you to be really careful not to do that at school, because then you will get pee in your hair.”

“Okay, Mommy.”

“Please repeat what I just said.”

“When I’m at school I should stand away from the toilet when I put on my pants so I don’t get pee in my hair.”

So, that’s the first life lesson I learned at Barnes & Noble on Friday night.

The second lesson was this: If you want to sell your young adult novel, it’s all about legs on the cover. (Probably not your own legs, if you’re anything like me and stopped shaving them approximately two seconds after you realized you’d landed a committed life partner. Get a 15-year-old’s legs. Fifteen is definitely the peak in the life of legs).

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