it's hard to be hip when you're a middle-aged parent

Today, we went out to do a multitude of things, and Lola decided to wear her purple ballgown (which I made myself: it has six layers of layers of tulle and silk underskirts, plus little sewn-on flowers and butterflies), one yellow SpongeBob flipflop, one pink sandal, and her butterfly wings, plus a scruffy white sweater from the preschool lost and found. Ohhhkay, Lola, whatever. Poor old Iris looked pretty deprived in her school uniform next to her sister.

Among the places we visited was our beloved comicbook store, Isotope, where we picked up a few comics and dropped off our preschool auction letter (yes, I may be pissed, as I ranted in yesterday's post, but I'm still punctiliously fulfilling my duties as a member of the co-op, fundraising away). James, the ultra charming proprietor, has promised us another nice donation, and the girls and I love to indulge in a visit to Isotope (perennially voted best comic book store for chicks in the Bay Area).

When we checked out, James was chatting with some visiting comic book professionals, and one was telling a long, fairly dull anecdote about calling the cops on family members. "Who doesn't want to call the police on their family?" asked one of the hipsters. I chimed in at this point, pointing to ballgown-clad, bewinged Lola, "Hell, she wanted me to call the police on her cat once. 'Call the police, call the police!'" The hipsters, who had been laughing at the dullest remark made by one of their own, were completely nonplussed and not wanting to encourage this. James, ever gifted with social graces, did laugh, but otherwise, it fell flat. Now, if I do say so myself, I have been complimented on my comic delivery and turn of phrase ad nauseam for decades, and it is an interesting concept, calling the police on a cat. But I suspect that humor stemming from children (as well as a sense of acceptance and fatalism about dealing with human excrement) falls on just one side of the parent-non-parent divide. No self-respecting hipster is going to want to trade bon mots with the sidekick of a tiny, cantankerous fairy princess.