and exchange it for the exact same thing one size (or half size or whatever measurement) larger. Despite the repeated requests for less-slutty clothes.
The problem is, her mother is in one way correct. Maddie looks REALLY nice in those clothes. Nice for a low-life street walker, or for a 20-year-old trolling the singles bars. But NOT nice for a 13-year-old who (praise be!) has a well-developed sense of personal morality, and who is by nature very modest in her manner and appearance. I think she looks even BETTER in modest clothing, when she's allowed to choose. We took the kids to Abilene, TX to visit the pilot-uncle and his wife, and a side trip to Austin for touristy stuff. There was a vintage/new agey kind of clothing store in Austin, and the girl chose for herself a most beautiful little dress, nice colours for her skin and hair, that was just a little longer than knee-length, and not at all revealing. She looks SMASHING in it, and it is not at all 'provocative.' Very demure, very high-class. The kid has great taste. (She didn't have the money to get it for herself, and was crestfallen when she found the price tag. She hung it back up after trying it on. I sneaked back to the store a little later, and guess what she got for Christmas from me and Grandma? I got the bestest hug ever for that one, worth every penny - the little frock she chose was about $70... I said she had good taste....)
Her mother really is an idiot, with the morals of an alley cat and the brain of a kumquat (and that's being truly brutal to kumquats).
Once, before their kids were born, they had moved into a small house, idiot-Mommy and the step-dweeb. The previous tenant in the place had put down a few of the little roach traps, the stick-to-whatever sort. A stainless steel table knife fell on the floor behind a cabinet, and this idiot-child threw it in the trash, because it had been within a foot or so of one of these old and dried-out roach motels. I pulled it back out, and washed it in hot water and soap, intending to put it back in the drawer, there was nothing at all wrong with it. This moron threw a MAJOR screaming, hitting, frothing FIT. If I put the knife back in the drawer with the other flatware (ALL of which WE had given them!) she was going to throw everything in the drawer in the trash as soon as we left.
If she had a brain, she'd take it out and play with it. And while it was out nobody would notice her acting any differently than when it was in, since she never uses it. Never. I'd not say she was stupid - if there was a word to describe somebody dumber than stupid. |
