One of the first times Lawson brought her boyfriend 鈥� later husband 鈥� Victor home for dinner with her parents, she wrote that her father had an unusual practical joke in mind. "My mom and I were on the couch, and from our vantage point we could see my father tiptoeing into the room," she wrote. "He gestured with a finger to his lips not to let Victor know that he was behind him and a live bobcat was tucked under his right arm. This probably would have been my exact worst nightmare of bringing a boy home to meet my parents, if I'd ever had enough creativity to imagine my father throwing a live bobcat on the boy I was trying to impress.... My eyes widened in horror as my father loomed over and yelled in his booming, cheerful voice, 'HELLOOOOO, VICTOR,' while tossing a live bobcat on him." Lawson's father, with hands now free of bobcat, then stuck one out for Victor to shake. Lawson says Victor tensed and took a deep breath as the bobcat landed on his chair, then "turned in slow motion to shake my dad's hand....Then he turned back to my mom and kept talking as if nothing could be more natural."
