Even orphaned teenagers grow up

By Staff
Leada Gore, Editor
Readers: I hope you will indulge a short vacation from this column. I've been writing this column for 13 years and occasionally find it beneficial to take a couple of weeks off to recharge my batteries. For the next four weeks, I will be running some old favorites with an occasional update.
As for this week's column, my sister is now 20 and a college student. She did survive her teenage years, though the jury is still out on the rest of us.
Feb. 1, 2001
I'm fortunate enough to have a 15-year-old sister, who is in the throws of teenage angst. In between trips to the mall, long phone conversations with friends and trying to see how much pink lip gloss she can glob on, I've lost that sweet, simple child I once knew.
Case in point: Several weeks ago, my mother called me and uttered the now familiar phrase "You've got to talk to your sister."
It turned out my mother had committed the unpardonable sin of embarrassing my sister in public.
My sister had been at the movies with a group of friends. She was instructed to call my mother when she was ready to be picked up from the theater.
My mother had been out shopping and had left her cell phone in the car, so she decided to go by the theater on the way home. Instead of waiting in the long line of cars out front, she decided to walk into the theater lobby – big mistake. When my mother walked into the lobby, my sister was standing around with her friends. My mother waved and then walked up to the group, all of whom she knew.
My mother said the look of mortification on my sister's face was obvious from the start. When the two got back in the car, my sister looked at my mother and said "don't ever do that to me again! You can wait in the car!"
"I'm not sure what I did wrong," mother said. "All I did was say hello and tell Anna where the car was. I didn't stay or anything."
"She came in and embarrassed me!" my sister yelled.
I'm not sure when this change happened. Anna used to like having us around.
But at least I know we are not alone.
This weekend, we were at a wrestling tournament sitting as far away as possible from my sister. She's a mat maid, a job that in her own words requires her to "watch the time clock and mop up blood." Sitting behind us was a mother and her daughters.
"Mother!" the oldest one hissed, " Go sit over there. Don't sit with us!"
Obediently, the mother got up and walked away.
"You can come sit with us," I told her as she walked by. "We're not allowed to sit with our teenager either."
There you go: another orphaned teenager.