Chapter 4: Strategically Debasing Oneself

Deciding to be a drummer was easy. You just say, "I'm a drummer," and bam! the title is yours. Getting one's parents to buy him a drum set isn't so simple. Alexis's Mom and Dad had the unfortunate characteristic of free will, fiscal responsibility and other things that were bothersome to a teenage girl with gigantic ambitions.

"Please!" Alexis begged. "I'll skip out on Christmas presents and birthdays and I'll practice really hard!" She'd already exhausted almost all of her techniques for getting things out of her folks: Acting innocent ("Hello, dear parents.") the slippery slope fallacy ("Too expensive? I guess you won't be sending me to college then.") twisting their logic back on them ("Didn't you always want me to practice a skill? follow my dreams?") false dichotomies ("If you don't buy me a drum-set then clearly you want me to only pursue dreams that I hate.") and now she was just about on the last leg of her "Loss of Dignity" strategy which involved groveling, falling on her knees, and then transitioning into the "Insanity Plea" Final Solution, where she'd will herself to tears and prostrate herself while screaming into the carpet. These stratagems were all loaded up and ready to go, but when she hit her knees and clasped her hands in supplication, the expressions on her parents' faces told her that this wasn't going to work.

"Maybe," Dad said.