TWO FOR TUESDAY

 

Next week, Junior Miss Giddy turns 21, thereby officially entering into the world of adulthood.  I guess to a parent, your child never really becomes an adult but simply a somewhat taller version of the person you always look upon as a six year old. 

Always being the practical and logical sort (even when she actually was six years old) her last big milestone birthday was five years ago when she turned sweet 16.  It’s become trendy and expected over the past decade or so to have some sort of blowout event, often at an expensive catering hall for a girls sixteenth birthday.  Junior Miss herself has been to many, and some of them were like mini-weddings.  So when she was within shouting distance of hers, we asked her if she wanted a big party.  She told us she’d rather have a car.

Sounds nuts, but considering some of the extravaganzas we’d seen, the cost would probably be about the same.  So for her 16th birthday, we got her a car.  She’s taken very good care of it, and she’s an excellent driver, just like Rainman.  Now she’s approaching another milestone and everyone has been asking what she’s going to do to celebrate.  There are lots of folks in our little circle of trust who think that we should all take her out to a club or a bar for a night of drinking.  But, Junior Miss really doesn’t drink, so where’s the enjoyment for her there?

Nope, she’s once again taking the practical approach.  You see in five years, she’s kept the mileage low on her car – but as it approaches fifty thousand miles, it’s time for new tires, and some new brakes to help those tires come to a stop when appropriate.  So before she headed back to college we took the car in and set her up.  She was most pleased.  If you saw the cost of the new tires and brakes, you’d understand why she wouldn’t want to spend the money herself and also probably say that it was a nice gift.  I got a sweater for my 21st birthday and it didn’t even fit.

Still, and deservedly so, we’d like to take her out for a nice dinner for her birthday, and as each day goes along, someone or other seems to get added to the invite list, so it’s become a party.  OK, still not so bad, until you start to think about some of our friends.  They’re just like us, bad examples for the child when there’s a bar nearby.  So I’ll get stuck with a bill that could sway the national debt back towards the black and Junior Miss will have to drive as many people as we can fit in the car home. 

No doubt she’ll do it with good humor and a smile as always, she does get a kick out of watching the adults behave like teenagers.  Thank goodness someone in the family is responsible.

Got me to thinking about when I was 21. 1983. Carrie Underwood was born 4 days after my 21st birthday making me precisely older than dirt.  Well I wasn’t listening to Carrie when I was twenty one, but I was listening to these two…

See you on Thursday!