I met her when she was only two and a half years old; I married her daddy when she was almost four. She is now eighteen, and one of the loveliest young women I know. She is also my favorite child, but don't tell my other two. They each think they're my favorite, and depending on the day and who has used peanut butter to shape the cat's fur into a Mohawk, they are right.
She and I share many things: the same taste in music, a fierce love for the man who helped bring her into this world, and a strange sense of humor. I call her Cinderella; she calls me Stepmonster. She's been known to go to the mall wearing giant bunny slippers and then pretends not to speak English when I turn to talk to her. I have a picture of her somewhere wearing a plastic bag on her head with her eyes rolled back, flashing a hand sign that's supposed to signal "Wal-Mart". On our family cruise this summer she looked over the edge of the ship, turned to me and said, "Did you see that? I think I saw your luggage float by."
Recently she and I got into a conversation with her father about status symbols. She brought up the latest chrome rims, the ones that keeping spinning after the car has come to a stop. You see them mostly on rigs like Escalades and other SUV's, brightly painted metallic giants accompanied by a thumpin' sound system. We debated the usefulness of these and how it appears that it's no longer a big deal to see them. Many expensive vehicles have them; they have become almost commonplace.
A short time later, she and I went to the grocery store (because she was my favorite that day, you know). As I pulled into a parking space, she started choking and sputtering. I automatically reached over and whacked her on the back, and she gasped, "No! LOOK AT THAT!" We got out of the car and stood staring at the vehicle two spaces down. It had the spinning rims. It was lowered. It was beige. It was a Ford Escort. I am telling the absolute truth. We stood there like a couple of idiots with our mouths hanging open until I finally nudged her because I was afraid we'd get hauled away.
As we walked past it, we completely lost control of ourselves. What started out as a giggle escalated into full- blown hysterics. We clutched each other and howled. She kept repeating, "It was an ESCORT! AN ESCORT!" I finally got semi-control over myself and clamped a hand over her mouth once we were in the store. I was afraid we'd run into whoever owned that tricked-out ride…the Escort with rolling rims. I honestly didn't want to know who drove such a car, although I offered to leave my stepdaughter's cell phone number on the windshield, which sobered her up in a hurry.
So we've added another inside joke. No one else truly gets the Stepmonster thing, nor do they do much beside stare blankly at us when we start going through the entire dialog of "Pretty In Pink". They don't understand the shopping mall jokes, or the way we gang up on her younger brother and sister by saying quite seriously, "Yes, you WERE found in a Taco Bell dumpster as an infant. Now go clean your room."
So whenever we see those rims on any car, we poke each other, yell "ESCORT!" and crack up. It may be a small thing, but it's all ours.
~Donna
Are you a stepfamily? Leave me a comment and tell me your story.
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