Thanks to the treacherous weather on Thursday, we decided to leave for Indianapolis that night, rather than get up early Friday morning and drive 300+ miles without knowing how long it would take to reach our destination. I had heard the drive to Vincennes, IN, was 5 hours (it’s normally 1 hr.), so I wasn’t taking any chances. In the end, it took 1 1/2 hours to get to Vincennes because we had to drive as slow as 20 MPH in some places. The ice on the road looked like the bumpy back of an alligator and stretched for miles under our tires. It wouldn’t take much to slide off the road in those conditions. I’ve done that twice before and don’t want to turn in another insurance claim for winter driving accidents. They’re gonna think I have a problem.
In all, it took us 3 hours to get to Terre Haute, normally a 2-hour drive from Evansville. We spent the night there and had a hot breakfast the next day before trekking on towards Indy on much better roads, although I refused to drive 70 MPH like the other fools. We made it with two hours to spare– better early than late. Gymnastics waits for no one if they are late.
Laura’s scores were so-so, but surprisingly high enough to net her medals for everything but bars (that score was too bad to mention here). She placed 4th on vault, 2nd on beam, 3rd on floor and 5th all around (lucky for her they went out 5 places).
While we were waiting for awards to start, Laura dropped a bomb on me. She said she wanted to quit gymnastics and do competitive cheer next year. Gaaaaahhh… I do not like competitive cheer (I’ve seen it and still don’t like it, so I know what I’m talking about). I told her gymnastics is the foundation for all her sports, so she should consider continuing it throughout high school. I hope and pray she changes her mind. We just bought a very expensive team leo for her at the start of this season. That day I put a secret hex on her: I hope she has twin girls just like her someday; expensive– times two. May they choose expensive activites and change their minds often about what they want to do.
After the meet, we shared quality mother-daughter time shopping in the Circle Center Mall, hoping to find something Laura could buy with her birthday money. We went to her favorite stores– Hollister and Abercrombie & Fitch. They are not my favorite stores, however.
Both stores assault my senses by blaring loud music and pumping out strong fragrances that burn my nose and give me a sinus headache. In the Abercrombie store, the salesgirl asked me a question, but I couldn’t hear her due to the deafening music. I asked her to repeat her question, but still had no idea what she said. Same thing happened in the Hollister store– the guy ringing us up asked me if we wanted to buy their perfume, but I could hardly hear him across the counter. I didn’t know if I should nod or shake my head. I just wanted to get out of there.
The lighting in both stores is terrible too– dark like my closet, with spotlights focused on selected shelves and racks. I want to ask them to turn on all the lights so I can better see their overpriced clothes. I don’t want to pick up something I can’t afford and have Laura fall in love with it.
The whole experience in these stores makes me feel like an ancient specimen of motherhood, accompanying her teenage daughter for the sole purpose of handing over her Visa card to pay for thin, over-priced T-shirts and tank tops produced by child labor in some tropical country abroad. My revenge: I secretly enjoy messing up as many piles of tank tops as I can get my hands on. I make sure I touch every neatly folded pile, rifling through it and pretending to look for a certain size or style. I hope the teens who work in those stores hate folding and re-folding those flimsy tank tops.
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