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Rain expected to hold off until Sunday

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Music, dancing highlight ‘prom’ event for senior citizens in Wilkes-Barre

I was sitting with my younger son last night, spoon feeding him mashed potatoes. That&#8217;s a lie, but sometimes it feels like I&#8217;m still mothering infants. Anyway, we were discussing this and that &#8212; discussing his day, because no one gives a crap about my day &#8212; and I said something he didn&#8217;t like about an acquaintance.He reprimanded me: &#8220;You can&#8217;t judge a book by its cover, Maria!&#8221;&#8220;Who the hell ever told you that? You can totally judge a book by its cover. I&#8217;m a librarian, and I can tell you that is the God&#8217;s honest truth. &#8216;Moby Dick,&#8217; for example: boring cover, super-dry read &#8230;&#8221;&#8220;Mom! You taught me that in, like, pre-school. And it&#8217;s true.&#8221;&#8220;Huh. You heard that, but not: &#8216;Do not drink Jack and Coke outside your hotel room during senior week because you will get a big, fat citation.&#8217; Interesting.&#8221;&#8220;You&#8217;ve always told us to be non-judgmental and accepting of everyone, but you obviously don&#8217;t practice what you preach.&#8221;Huh. Well played &#8230; by a 19-year-old who didn&#8217;t know that the hashtag button and the pound button on the phone were the same thing.Oh, hell. He&#8217;s right. We all know he&#8217;s right. I&#8217;ve said it numerous times over the last several years, and it still holds up. I&#8217;m a hypocrite and a fourth-degree fabricator.&#8220;Oh, honey,&#8221; I explained, &#8220;I trained you kids to be excellent little citizens, really great friends and supreme students. And whatever I had to say to get you to that point, I said. It didn&#8217;t mean I was going to follow my own rules, silly.&#8221;So many years, so many life lessons, so many fibs.Among my favorites:Treat others as you want to be treated: Well, you can try. This only works if the other party isn&#8217;t a complete jerk. Then you just should treat them the way you might treat a feral cat. Just stay away and maybe throw them tuna and catnip occasionally.I don&#8217;t care how drunk you are. If you call me for a ride home, I swear to God there will be no repercussions: I want this to be true. I can pretend it&#8217;s true, and then just mask the punishment as something that I needed done, anyway. Like cleaning the grout with bleach and a toothbrush. True story.It will get better: Eh. Sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn&#8217;t. Crap shoot.Wait until your father gets home: Waiting until their father got home was as effective as telling them not to drink alcohol during senior week.That haircut/bow tie/those glasses make you look so smart: Ummm &#8230; notttt so much.Where there&#8217;s smoke, there&#8217;s fire: Not necessarily. But if there is smoke, it&#8217;s probably my frozen chicken pot pie burning substantially in the oven.Look, it&#8217;s very simple: Do as I say, not as I do, kids: I would like to claim that as long as they follow my example, they&#8217;ll be just fine. But let&#8217;s be honest; I often do not model the best behavior. I am a right-fighter, loudmouthed, opinionated and horrifically unfiltered. My kids are so much nicer than me.They probably should forget everything I&#8217;ve ever preached.All they really need to know to be my heroes is this:Stay humble.Work hard.Be kind.Make sure your mother has Wi-Fi and no bars on the windows in her room at the assisted living facility. That&#8217;s key.<style>
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<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta>Maria Jiunta HeckLife Deconstructed</bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta>Maria Jiunta Heck, of West Pittston, is a mother of three and a business owner who lives to dissect the minutiae of life. Send Maria an email at mariajh40@msn.com.</shirttailMeta></div>

Life Deconstructed: ‘Do as I say, not as I do,’ and work hard, stay humble