Shelby Nichols Consulting

My last post was all about Career Day at the high school and guess what? The lady in charge got back to me. I said I’d come as a consultant for the police. Naturally, I asked Dimples to come with me, and he was planning on it, but had to cancel at the last minute because of a murder.

Sure, that was a good excuse, but it ruined all my plans, and I had to go it alone.

So instead of focusing on police work as a detective, I’d have to tell them about my work as a consultant for the detectives. But it could still work. I could use the brief outline I’d prepared of what happens when a person is charged with a crime, and how a detective would go about investigating it. That seemed easy enough, and whatever time there was remaining, could be turned into a Q & A session.

That might have worked out just fine, but when I got into the classroom, everything I was going to say changed in a flash. Josh and his friends, who included Chloe, had all decided to come to my session. They all knew that I’d helped Chloe out of a dangerous situation because of my premonitions.

With Josh there, I couldn’t get away with anything, especially lying. So I stumbled my way through my initial outline about the investigative process. It only took about five minutes. With nothing left to say, I opened it up to questions.

The first question, of course, was about my premonitions. They wanted to know how they worked… even asking if I got visions. I had to explain that it was more like a hunch after I spoke with someone. Another student asked if I needed an object that the murder victim had touched, or something like that.

I picked up pretty quickly that they were basing most of these questions on TV shows they’d seen. I hated to burst their collective bubbles with the truth that none of that stuff was real, but how could I even think about saying that? Needless to say, it got a little awkward.

At last, someone asked if I could tell them about an experience I’d had helping the police arrest someone. Since I’d actually thought about an experience I could share, I sighed with relief, and began to tell them about a guy who’d been arrested for killing his girlfriend. They ate it up, and it was actually kind of fun. The time flew by, and before I knew it, the bell rang.

The teacher wrapped it up, telling everyone to thank me, and the kids filed out. Josh and his friends each gave me high fives, which was kind of cool.

After they left, I gathered my things. The teacher thanked me for coming, but he didn’t think I’d offered much more than entertainment. It was supposed to be career day – not story-telling day. I hadn’t given them any information about the “real” world.

It might have hurt my feelings, but I had worse things to worry about. I’d picked up that Josh was thinking seriously about becoming a private investigator… because of me. He liked the idea of being his own boss. More than that, he thought it sounded interesting with lots of excitement and never a dull moment. He’d definitely look into it.

Crap! I guess I made it sound too good. I should have added the bad side of the job, like all the times I’d nearly been killed, and how the strain of working for both a mob boss and the police was sure to give me an ulcer.

Of course, didn’t he already know most of that? There were some things I didn’t tell my kids because I wanted to spare them the worry, but now I wasn’t sure I’d done them any favors.

I guess it all comes down to this. Do I want my child to follow in my footsteps? No way! Not even a little. It’s way too dangerous, and bad enough that I’m involved, let alone, him.

So, now it looks like I’m going to have to do a little career searching, so I can suggest other careers for him to consider. It will have to be something interesting and exciting without the worry of death hanging over his head. Maybe Chris could talk to him about being a lawyer. That was interesting, right?

If you have any suggestions, I’d love to hear them!

Until next time…

~Shelby