The Bell’s NASA Space Shuttle Discovery Dresser, kinda sorta

For most of the year, Bella’s been walking around with a flash drive full of writing projects stashed in her pocket so she could snag a few minutes here and there from any computer with an owner willing to loan it out. I figured her resourcefulness deserved rewarding.

My kid is awesome even incognito.

After some head-scratching, the whole family chipped in and bought her a really freaking nice computer. It’s the kind of thing a kid with parents in her socioeconomic bracket usually would never consider, but Bella is a great writer. I figure if she doesn’t write her stuff now, she’s gonna whine and moan for the rest of her life about how she missed some kind of boat (and that will only keep her from winning the Nobel Peace Prize for curing cancer and eradicating world hunger, duh). Simply put: Bella needed a badass computer for the good of mankind.

We had to throw her off the trail, though, when she saw me getting out of the car with a bag from Apple. Luckily, Russ is extraordinarily good at making fake invoices for things a thirteen year-old girl would never want, like a Space Shuttle Discovery Bedroom Dresser and matching Rocket Booster Shoe Holders from the “NASA Space Store.” Said invoices are especially effective when you accidentally leave them laying around and tell Bella to stay out of the garage.

What no teenager wants for Christmas — ever.

This afternoon, we hid the MacBook in a box under her old netbook that kicked the bucket last year. Then we covered the entire affair in a nest of chairs and stools and boxes and pillows and lots of other crud draped in sheets. It definitely didn’t look like anything cool after we were done.

Spoiler alert: Get Kleenex.

In about three minutes, all the extra hours I worked this holiday were totally worth it. My spawn is super cool. I can’t wait to read her stuff. Such good fortune.