Scarleteen

My best friend and I are both 15/f. Last weekend, I went away with her and her family to their weekend home. It's next to this beautiful lake in this small, middle-of-nowhere type town.

We left early Saturday morning and got there around noon. The first couple hours were uneventful. Me, her, and her little brother spent some time fishing off this pier that extends out into the lake from their backyard. After we went back inside, her brother came across this pair of metal handcuffs his uncle had gotten him for his birthday. He'd left them behind the last time they were there. My friend and I took them and jokingly handcuffed ourselves together. It was only then that her brother realized he didn't remember where he'd put the keys.

We searched the house for an hour, but didn't find them. Finally, he remembered they were back home, five hours away. Like I said before, we were in a small town, so there was no local locksmith. These weren't police handcuffs, so there was no sense in calling them since they wouldn't have a key. We tried picking the locks, but couldn't manage it. Finally, our only options were to either cut them off or stay handcuffed together until Sunday.

Neither of us wanted to destroy her brother's present since it was our own fault we'd put them on without looking for the key first. So we decided to own this boneheaded move of ours and told her parents we'd stay stuck together. They got a big laugh out of that, but agreed to let us do it.

We carried on with our plans and didn't let the fact that we were stuck to each other stand in the way of having fun. Before returning home, we fished some more, hiked in the woods, made smores over a campfire. Heck, we even went into town and browsed at all these cool little mom and pop shops. We got some weird stares, lol, but that was okay. When we arrived back at her place in the city on Sunday night, we finally got un-cuffed after spending a little more than 24 hours that way.

Course, when my mom found out about this, she got really mad and said I'm not allowed to go on any more overnight trips with my friend. She said it was irresponsible of her parents to let us stay stuck that way. She thinks it could've been dangerous. Like, how? One of us trips and falls and yanks the other's arm out of the socket or something? Please. Don't get me wrong, I've tried seeing this from her point of view, but just can't. It doesn't make any sense to me. Personally, we both thought the whole experience was kinda funny. I even told some of our friends about it on Monday and they all laughed. It honestly wasn't that bad. The temp was in the 60's that weekend, so the fact that we couldn't put our jackets on wasn't a big deal. The hardest part of the whole thing was handling the bathroom issue, but we worked that out. Plus, I think we had an obligation not to destroy her brother's present since it was our own fault we got stuck in the cuffs to begin with.

I really don't want to never be allowed to go away with my friend ever again. What can I do to convince my mom to change her mind? What we did wasn't dangerous, right?

This certainly sounds very innocent and also like it wasn't particularly dangerous to me. But I'm not sure gathering opinions is all that helpful with this since whose opinion is at issue here is your mother's. On the whole, telling parents other people disagree with them -- or worse still, the internet does -- at times like these tends to backfire as a strategy to get them to change their minds.

I think the person here to talk to really is your Mom. I think you can gently let her know you disagree with her, but also apologize for scaring her, which is probably what the biggest feelings are here she's having, and let her know that of course she gets to have her own feelings. Then I think I'd give her a little time: now isn't the time to try and negotiate this, it's too fresh, you know? The next time an opportunity to go away with your friend comes up, *then* ask her about it, and if she still is feeling the same way (she may not be), ask her if there's anything you or her family can do so that you can go but your mother also can feel okay about it.