When: Earlier this morning.
The scene: In the car, Dad driving ninth-grader daughter to school. Almost there. Daughter has a test today and seems a bit stressed.
Dad (looking down at car floor under Daughter’s feet): What’s that clicking noise?
Daughter (herself looking down): The handles on my purse.
Dad: Can you move them apart or something so they won’t make that noise?
Daughter: I HATE it when people do that!
Dad: What’s that?
Daughter: I didn’t even notice the clicking till YOU said something, and now it’ll drive me crazy! (Implied but not spoken, this time: It’s all your fault!)
Dad (mildly): Well, yeah — I noticed it, and figured we should do something about it.
Dad (foolishly thinking this might be a teachable micro-moment): When you think about it, that’s a big chunk of what we do as human beings: We notice things we don’t like, and we try to do something about it.
Daughter: You don’t have to notice stupid stuff!
Dad (wisely): There is that, I guess.
(Arrival at school.)
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