Last week my 13 year old, formerly known on this blog as My Beautiful Daughter and now re-christened as Teenage Daughter, told me that I’m a very boring person, no offense.
For weeks there’s been this not-quite-tension-but-weirdness with her and me.
Like things that she used to find funny that I did, she now finds annoying. And although she’s not overtly rolling her eyes at me, it’s implied in many, many sentences.
“I love you and everything,” she told me, “but you’re just really boring.”
“I am?” I droned on.
“Yeah. You are. You don’t have anything interesting to say. Like ever. It’s annoying.”
“I like to think that I have some interesting stories,” I monotoned.
“I’d like to hear one,” she crossed her arms.
“Well, I saw a program on the television set today that there was a reckless youngster who tried to jump on a moving train and her legs were severed.”
“That’s DISGUSTING.”
“Disgusting, yes, but a cautionary tale. Let us discuss the lessons we can learn from it.”
“What kind of a person would try to jump on a moving train?”
“It was some kind of a college prank/dare situation.”
“It’s not very smart.”
“You are right, it is not very smart. Very foolish. Very dangerous.”
“Did they have video of it?”
“No.”
“Re-enactment?”
“No.”
“That’s so terrible!”
“Very tragic. Very sad not to have legs.”
“Wow.”
“I know. Pretty interesting story I told you there, right?”
“OMG. You just ruined everything by asking that. Because it’s like you just want attention or something. YOU ARE SO DIFFERENT MOM. YOU USED TO BE INTERESTING! WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU?”
“I do not know. Perhaps I’ve always been very boring and you just recently became a lot more interesting and so I seem a lot more boring in comparison?”
“I didn’t even listen to that.”
“Ok, honey. Don’t jump on moving trains.”
“Duh.”
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