by Hero Jenkins
When my daughter was little
we had this old rocking chair. She loved to crawl up into my lap and we would
rock and talk for hours. Well... she talked and I listened. She was about five
when she made me a “pinkie promise” that she would never grow up. One day,
shortly after her twelfth birthday, I discovered she'd broken that promise when
she let it slip that she thought Tom Cruise had a nice butt.
“Really? I hadn’t noticed.”
“Seriously?”
“That’s gross… wait a
minute, why did you notice!?”
“How could you not notice?”
Everything was downhill from
there.
A few years later she got
“bosoms” (I can’t bring myself to say the other word). She started going
shopping with her friends and coming home with what I would call 'questionable
choices' in clothing. I knew that I couldn’t control her impulse spending when
she was out succumbing to peer pressure and buying inappropriate clothing with
her stupid (I'm sorry, that was out of line) friends. So
I decided not to fight the battle on THAT front. I simply told her: “Buy
whatever you like, but if I don’t like it… I’m throwing it away.” So one day
“now you see it” (she may even get away with wearing it)... but sooner or later
it would simply disappear. "Now you don't."
A very wise man once said
“trust but verify” and that’s what we did. Parents, you have no idea what your
kids do when you're not around. Unfortunately (or fortunately) we did. We made
no secret that we would be making surprise visits to their school. It was on a
surprise visit when we spotted our middle son teetering atop the backboard
above the rim of a schoolyard basketball court practicing jumping off and
hanging onto the rim like basketball players did after a slam dunk (but that’s
a story for another time.)
It was always a test of
wills with my kids; my daughter was no exception. As I would find out later she
was craftier than both of my sons put together... all wrapped up in an adorable
little package. She started buying clothes that were layered… a cute,
cover-everything jacket which hid the cover-almost-nothing blouse underneath.
It would have worked too except for the fact that my wife and I were ninjas
when it came to surprise visits to their schools. On one such visit I found my
daughter minus the cover-everything jacket… surrounded by boys. Here’s where
our accounts of “the incident” diverge. She swears that “the incident” wasn’t
the way I describe it. First of all, her top was not “low cut” it was “form
fitting”... and those boys were already her friends before she got her bosoms
and started wearing skimpy tops.
Whatever. To me it looked
like the scene in “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” when Jessica Rabbit takes the
stage.
“Oh Dad, no! Jessica Rabbit is not something I want to be
associated with. Jessica Rabbit, Betty Boop and Lola Bunny are the three
characters I never want to be compared to.”
Again... Whatever. I know
what I saw.
Needless to say, the blouse
(both halves) wound up in the garbage and money was wasted. Funny thing about
growing up. Now that she is an adult and can dress any way she chooses, her
choices are a lot more conservative. Go Figure.
No comments:
Post a Comment