Circumstances of A Teenage Girl

Is it possible to have a normal family? Consider this:

Your dad gave you a hundred bucks to buy the ingredients for tonight's party menu, consisting of a creamy pasta main meal, jell-o, and hotdog sandwiches.

Pasta:
 -tuna
 -pasta
 -cheese
 -peas
 -milk for the creme
 -and other ingredients needed.

Okay, got that? Now imagine this: Your brother lounges in front of the whole day watching some 8os crap. You're parents have gone to work and have put you in charge.

Your brother finally gets the message that you need the ingredients NOW after countless You have to buy my party essentials-asaps and you almost leave the house yourself, thinking that your two sisters and your lousy brother can stay alive for at least an hour while you do marketing. But when he finally heaves his behind  and asks you for the money, you hand the bill over with the shopping list. He goes off on his merry little way and you proceed to make lunch for your little sisters.

Exactly an hour and a half passes by. He returns, and you thank him profusely for doing this for you. You then peer into the plastic bags. You ask him for the change. He says there is none. He also adds that he didn't buy the pasta. You blow up, practically shrill, as you say these words,

"Why didn't you just reduce the number of tuna and peas cans and squeeze in a packet of pasta or two?"

He responds back coolly, "Then you wouldn't have enough tuna and peas for the pasta."

"How the hell am I going to make the pasta if there is no freakin pasta to make?!" You scream.

"Don't look at me. I didn't write the list."

"Couldn't you bloody work out that a packet of pasta is proportionate to one can of peas and two tins of tuna?" You try to lower your voice, but your eyes are filling up as you think of the guests later, watching the tins of tuna and cans of peas on the banquet table, with a placard saying 'Pasta de la creme'.

It's almost impossible to imagine.

You then call your dad, your eyes stinging with fury, disappointment, horror, and shame that your brother has a brain the size of a pea. It's significant since he just bought three cans of it. But seriously, no amount of peas in a tin can can make you smarter.

Your dad barely registers the shock that your brother has just thrown a hundred bucks on food that can't be cooked without the crucial ingredient. He doesn't get mad. Good old dad. You hang up, tears finally streaming like the cream that would have been on your delicious pasta dish, the highlight of your teenage party-throwing night.

You turn, and your lovely brother smiles at you as if indulging a toddler. "Aww, look she's crying. Don't be sad, dear, everything will be alright," he soothes.

You wish you were an assassin, so that you could remove your sharp knife from the folds of your gown and silence the loser for all his worth.

You wish you were some top-secret spy, who could leap onto him and snap his neck.

You wish you never had a brother, if you couldn't fulfil any of the above.

But all you can do is wipe away your tears, now angry with yourself that you cried, and that he is taunting you for it. You keep silent as you sit in front of the laptop, open up Blogger, and run your hands over the keyboard like someone who just came out from writer's block, pressing the keys like an experienced pianist who feels the passion of what she plays.

You also, in the silence, note that he is asking for your sisters for all the money they have, 'according to Dad's orders', and you feel worse for doing this to them. They're the collateral damage in this Hunger Games.


If you can imagine all this happening within the space of ten minutes, I ask you to contact me and we can have tea together as we discuss the circumstances of a teenage girl in this era of insanity.