Had lofty ambitions today, but seem to be drawing a blank. If I get offline and manage to write the daily story, I will post it below. But if I don't, well, I won't be a day behind...
OK: here it is. It doesn't use the word of the day, but oh well on that.
Tired. She was so sick and tired of being told she couldn’t do what she wanted to do. It wasn’t like what she wanted was so radical or evil or imposing on anybody. All she wanted to do was hang out with her friends and play games. Why was that a problem? I mean, if her friends came over while everyone was at work, why was that a problem? It’s not like they were doing anything except sitting at the dining room table. All smoking happened outside.
The problem wasn’t her friends. The problem was her stepfather. He didn’t want people there when he was out of the house. She guessed he didn’t trust her friends, which was completely stupid. He also didn’t want people there when he got home. She guessed he wanted peace and quiet, or privacy, or something. That kind of made sense. But what was the problem when he wasn’t home? She was off work then, no one else was home and the house was empty. Why couldn’t she have her friends over?
She complained about this continually to her mom. But her mom thought that the step dad had the right to say what he wanted to about his house. Her mom was completely unable to answer the question of where exactly was her daughter’s house? If it was his house only, where did the daughter and the mom live?
The only good thing about the guy was that he was really crazy about her mom, seemed to appreciate everything her mom did and everything her mom cooked. “Besotted” was not a bad description of where the guy was coming from … and she had to admit that there were worse characteristics in a step dad.
Her mom’s birthday was coming up. She heard her stepdad ask her mom what she wanted for her birthday. Her mom said she needed time to think. She went and talked to her mom the next day. She suggested that her mom ask him to let her friends come over during the day. That would be a great birthday present! Her mom didn’t quite see how that was a present for herself, but she explained to her mom how much happier she would be when her daughter had a full social life and how important it was that she be able to live her life at home since she couldn’t afford to waste money by meeting in public places and her friends didn’t have nice quiet, empty houses like they did. She made argument after argument, and finally her mother said she would ask.
That evening, the stepfather again asked the mom what she wanted for her birthday. The mom hedged and said that the only thing she could think of that she wanted, she didn’t think her husband would be willing to give her because it was a such a big deal. After his wife carried on like this for a while about how she couldn’t ask him for what she wanted, the stepfather said, “Oh honey. Whatever it is, I promise I will give it to you for your birthday! I love you!” So she passed on the daughter’s request along with a few of the reasons her daughter had given. Her husband was really not happy at all, but he had, in fact, promised his wife that he would grant her what she wanted, so he felt stuck.
It would be in the nature of a story like this for the a spoiled daughter to have a comeuppance, or for the stepfather’s fears to come to a dreadful fruition, or for the relationship between husband and wife to be forever tarnished by the manipulative interactions. But none of that happened. Games were happily played at the dining room table. The girl calmed down and felt that she lived in the house too. The mother was happy that her daughter seemed more settled. The friends left before the stepdad got home from work. And the stepdad relaxed.
