a story (Insight and Perspicacity)

A mom and a teenager were supposed to be working on communication issues. "What did you think of the new counsellor?" the mom said to the teenager. She thought the teenager would say that the counsellor closed his eyes and tilted his head in an ususual way while he talked. Teenagers are sometimes ruthless about noticing entertaining things about adults, for example owl or reptile like behavior. The mom could remember sitting in high school and watching tiny globs of unusually opaque spit stretch and retract at the corners of a teacher's mouth as the teacher talked about calculus, and watching the underarms of another teacher jiggle as that one wrote on a chalkboard.

"He seemed nice," the teenager said.

"Oh good," the mom said.

Even though they were supposed to be working on communication issues, she decided not to say "It doesn't bother you that he looks like Edward Scissorhands, then?"