My parents bought a brand new foreign car.

A Toyota.

::clutches heart, hyperventilates, peeks out window to watch for galloping apocalyptic horsemen::

You must understand. My father turns 84 this month and he’s a crotchety old brick-brained Republican. This is not unlike the news I got a few years ago when he and my mother told me they were helping the nurses in their county form a union. I almost shrieked on the phone, but instead asked, “When did you guys get all Norma Rae on me?!?”

Really. You have no idea how shocking that was. That and the Toyota just go to show that you can never tell with people. Not even your own parents.

Anyway, lost great swathes of time yesterday to the previously mentioned issue and other kinds of work that was not writing. I did however make great progress on reading the Homicide Investigation Manual. The problem I’m having with THRILLED is that it’s more like The Pink Panther than The Day of the Jackal, and I’m having a hard time just letting it be silly as hell. I think I’m going to let up now and see how that goes.