Flashback a dozen years.  I am sweet sixteen. It’s a Saturday. Normal sixteen year olds sleep in and hang out with their friends on weekends. However never having approached normal, even at sixteen, I went grocery shopping with my Mom.

Mom is in the laundry room lacing up her shoes to leave.

Mom calls- “I’m going to the store, are you ready?”

I bound into the room, raring to go.

Great Unwashed– “I’m ready!”

Mom looks my outfit up and down with concern.

The Great Unwashed – “Is it the oversized sombrero?”

Mom– “No, it’s not the oversized sombrero. It’s the sombrero and the short shorts with the mismatched pink socks in running shoes. Also the cape.”

The Great Unwashed– “The socks match! They’re both pink!”

Also an excellent combination. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Mom sighing heavily – “No, one sock has a pink band at the top and the other has a black band at the top with a picture of a cat on it.”

The Great Unwashed remains unconvinced by this argument.

Mom– “You can wear the sombrero but take off the cape.”

The Great Unwashed –“But if I take off the cape I won’t look heroic or important when I run down the pasta aisle pretending to be a crime fighter, I’ll just look silly.”

Mom – “Ok, you can leave the cape.”

My mother stands at the door mentally calculating the likelihood of me coming downstairs with matching pink socks versus me coming downstairs wearing the same socks but with blue paint in my hair, if she sends me upstairs to change.

Mom – “It’s fine. Let’s just go.”

You know those parents that lament their offspring leaving for university and complain about being empty nesters? For whatever reason my Mom never did that. Some people are just lucky, I guess.