Who thinks to interview their own mother? As a self-fixated teen, I never imagined that she had an actual personal history. To my young eyes, she was Source of Cash Obsessed With De-Cluttering

I'm a sucker for a man who giggles—not a high-pitched serial-killer sort of giggle, but a lighthearted laugh.

My father is the most genial Midwestern guy imaginable, but for him, disaster lurks around every corner—financial ruin, squandered health, pyramid schemes, airbags failing to deploy—so he tends to use fear as a parenting tool to try to goad his daughters into being more prepared.When he retired, he reached new levels of preparedness, so his car contained bottled water, hand wipes, a roadside emergency kit with flares, books on tape, a coin dispenser, and two hand towels to use as makeshift bibs so he and my mother could drive and eat without making a mess.