Two, Please

Do you remember the moment your daughter became a teen instead of a child?

I remember the moment it happened to me -- when I moved irrevocably from childhood to teenager in my stepmom's eyes.

We were shopping, and I held up an awesome[see footnote 1] shirt and said, "Wow, I love this! Will you get it for me?"

Her eyes widened as she looked at the shirt, and she replied, with just the smallest hint of a sarcastic tone, "Oh, absolutely, but you'll need two of them!"

"Two? ...Why?" I asked.

"Well, so you'll have one to shit on, and one to cover it up with."



See how she did that so masterfully? She said yes, but I knew she meant no, and she even cursed! Every kid knows that parents don't curse in front of their kids, so even while she was insulting the crap out of me (or at least, my taste in clothing), she was also complimenting me by letting me know she now considered me an adult - someone she could curse in front of.

She was (still is, really) a master of contradictions and subtlety and using humor to defuse otherwise potentially tense situations.


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Footnote 1 (because I'm a lawyer and lawyers love footnotes): Translation of the word "awesome," as applied to clothing, for those without teenage girls: "hideously ugly and horribly trashy, and even if you are laughing at this post you are secretly hoping your beloved innocent daughter or granddaughter never wants to wear anything remotely resembling it."