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If they hadn't revealed who Deep Throat was back in 2005, I would swear it was a woman. A woman with children.
That would have explained everything. Why she couldn't talk on the phone with the Washington Post. And why she had to secretly meet the reporter in a parking garage.
And it wouldn't have been because she was afraid her kids would hear her spilling secrets about the Nixon administration. It'd be that Bob Woodward couldn't hear a word she was saying because of all the kids screaming in the background.
Why is it that every time a mom gets on the telephone, the world around her crumbles? And I can speak for all moms, because when I talk to another mom and I've got my kids all around me, I can hear her kids all around her. In fact, every conversation I've had this week has ended with a blood-curdling scream in the background and then “I gotta call ya back.”
Any normal person would call the police. But if you're a mom, you just hang up and finish making dinner. No biggie.
My initial theory was that I call too much attention to myself when I get on the phone. I'm too obvious. I'm too happy and excited to just be having conversation beyond which Power Ranger is the strongest. And my kids can't handle it. They have to be right under foot with my full attention.
So I started sneaking off to make calls. Bathrooms and broom closets became my regular haunts. Dial quickly and quietly and speak in low, robotic tones that won't be picked up by ears conditioned to “Sesame Street.”
And it worked. For a while. Until somebody had to go really bad and I had no choice but to let him in. And turn on the lights.
There are lessons to be learned from Watergate. Particularly if you're like me and you desperately need to have a conversation. They knew it back then and I know it now. You gotta have a plan.
When Bob Woodward wanted to talk to Deep Throat, he'd move a flower pot with a red flag on the balcony of his apartment. And Deep Throat scheduled meetings by inking a clock face with the time on page 20 of Woodward's copy of the New York Times.
So now, when I want a call from a girlfriend? I stick my husband's Clemson flag in our azaleas. Then my girlfriend confirms the meeting with a smiley face on page 20 of my Parent Magazine. And then we meet at the farmers market, in the shadows, by the cantaloupes.
We don't share government secrets and we don't rat anybody out. But for the lengths that we go to, to have a complete conversation, 10 minutes of uninterrupted gabbing is plenty exciting.
tracyobserver@yahoo.com
