Would using a cattle prod on my daughter be abuse?
March 20th, 2008 by Tess
I swear, this child has only two speeds: dead stop and molasses.
She is going to visit her friend at college for spring break and take a few tours. As her mother I am not 100% thrilled about this. I understand it’s something I’m going to have to get used to. I keep reminding myself that she’s got a good head on her shoulders, and I’m just going to have to assume she’ll look before she leaps. Or drinks. Or…anything else I don’t really want to think about.
None of which is the point. The point is that the only flight she could get at the last minute that wasn’t a bazillion dollars left at 6:30 this morning. That meant getting up at 4, with the stern, repeated instruction that we absolutely, positively had to be out the door at 5. Bags were to be ready the night before, showers taken before bed.
Every reminder was met with rolled eyes and a “I know,mom” indicating her complete annoyance that I would even bother to bring up a point already so thoroughly and laborously covered.
So I don’t have to even say that she wasn’t ready, do I? I don’t have to illustrate how there was a lot of ‘chicken with its head cut off’ type chaos this morning, right?
Finally, FINALLY,we’re in the car, and I’m ranting like a loon, and she says to me- because obviously she doesn’t value her life- “You know, I really don’t need this right now.”
Uh…excuse me? Because I’m not the one going on vacation here, I’m only the idiot paying and chauffeuring…
“I don’t know what you want from me- I was up at 3am!”
“I thought you were packed last night!” rant I.
“I was!” she yells, indignant.
So what, oh what could she have been doing all that time? No idea. It never fails that when I tell her she needs to hurry, she nods and then moves at exactly the same pace she was before, then insists that she was moving as fast as possible.
I’d really like a cattle prod. Turned on low, of course- I wouldn’t want to fry her or anything, but just a little shot to the rear end now and again.
So naturally, after she made it on the plane by the skin of her teeth, after an hour waiting in security, after I really would have gleefully applied said electric encouragement to her nether regions, she went through the gate and didn’t even look back.
:::sigh:::
My kid’s off to college. True, it’s only a trial run, but still.
Sphere: Related ContentYou might be interested in these related posts:
- Feeling old in every conceivable way…
- T’was a hell of a weekend
- Writer’s Digest Addiction
- For Charlie…
- If only Bruiser was a Pacifist…

