What to Wear

         “Why didn’t you show me this sooner?” Rachel asked her fourteen year old son Grady and handed him the party invitation.
 
         “I wasn’t going to show it to you at all.  I don’t want to go.”

         “It sounds like a lot of fun.  Why don’t you want to go?”

         “Because everybody has to wear a dorky costume.”

         “There is nothing on the invitation that says ’dorky.’ “

         “You know what I mean.”

         “You don’t have to if you don’t want to.  But I think it could be a lot of fun.”

         “In a costume?  Besides Brad’s been riding me about it.  If I go I’ll never hear the end of it.”

         Rachel knew the teasing Grady endured from his older brother.  “Well if you don’t want to go then you don’t have to.  But don’t let Brad’s teasing keep you from doing what you want.”

         “Mom, costumes are stupid!  I’m not six years old.”

                Rachel sighed and thought, No you’re fourteen just about the hardest age to be sometimes.  She said, “If you were going what would you like to be?”

         He thought a minute and then said “That guy with the huge nose, Sir Ano something.”

         “You mean Cyrano de Bergerac?”

         “I mean the one with the honker, the guy in that movie that was on TV the other night.”

         “Why on earth would you want to be him?”

         “Because I could wear a fake nose.”

         “You want that costume?

         “I already told you, I’m not going.”

         “Jeanne Grover says Cindy is going to be there.”

         “Cindy Grover?”

         “Yes.  She’s going to be Red Riding Hood.”

         “Mom, could I get a wolf costume?”

         Rachel smiled and thought, that’s my boy!
         
         
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