Dirty laundry

I've always followed the rule that I shouldn't write anything for publication that I wouldn't want my mother to read. In other words, keep it clean.

Well Mom found out what I've been doing on the Internet. She happened to stumble upon a meet-and-greet with my fans this weekend (a.k.a. family get-together).

My siblings, bless their hearts, were talking about some of my blogs and how much they enjoy them. Just as my head started swelling to enormous proportions, Mom breaks in with "You're doing what?!"

Helpful sibling #1 says, "Robyn's got a blog!"

"A what?" asks Mom.

Helpful sibling #2 says, "A blog. She's just writing about her childhood and our family secrets." (Ha. Ha. Thank you, supportive family.)

One, you can't joke like that with my mother. Two, how do you explain what a blog is to someone who still uses a rotary phone?

After getting past the fact that a blog was nothing like a tumor or any medical condition, I just explained that it was like my old newspaper column I used to do ... just little light anecdotes about life -- not airing our family's dirty laundry!

Besides, I said, the only people reading it are family or people sitting within a 10-foot radius of my desk. It's not like my commercials on Lifetime have started airing yet.

I don't think she grasped the concept. Of course, now that I know Mom thinks the World Wide Web is a sequel to Charlotte's Web, I might just write what I please.

Nah. One of my siblings would tattle!