Just..WOW.

I am the owner of a soon-to-be 9 year old girl. This statement may not MEAN anything to those of you with boys or girls not of this age yet. But I assure you, those who are here now, or have been there, all shivered at the same time.

Miss Thing is genuinely a very good natured kid. Smart, assertive, competitive, even makes her bed and brushes her teeth. But lately. Holy Crap. Lately, the hormones have taken hold.

Santa brought my two kids cell phones for Christmas. And before you all are like Oh My God - No She Didn't. Yes I did. They are the $19.99 version of Cingular's Pay As You Go phones which gives them free calls to us and our cell phones. Since we are finding ourselves allowing them to spread their wings more and more without us - we thought this a good trial run. Twenty bucks gives you the phone and $10.00 worth of calls - I figure it's a good test. They are not allowed carte blanche - they can only use them when given to them to use.

I did however allow Miss Thing a 10 minute phone call (she had a timer) to call her bestest friend - cuz really how cool is a cell phone when you are 9 anyway?

The phone call complete - I was stupid enough to ask what they talked about.

I am warning all you other parents NOT to make the same mistake I made. DO.NOT.ASK. Seriously.

Miss Thing answers, "Oh - you don't even want to KNOW. Do you want to know? Cuz if you do I'll tell you..."

All of that was said in like 5 seconds - one word rolling into another at mach speed.

Me - "Oh sure - tell me." (DUMB DUMB MISTAKE) Cuz, I WANT her to tell me important stuff, right? Talk to dear ole Mom.

Miss Thing - "Well we have this club. It's a friendship club and Shea is the leader. She made herself the leader and no one else could be the leader and she named it the Witches and I thought it should be the Friendship Club - but she said she was the leader and we were all like whatever and then we found outSHEWASJUSTUSINGUSANDTHENWEDECIDEDTOMAKERULES......"

OH. MY. FUCKING GOD. In my head I was thinking - "Shut the fuck up. Shut the fuck up." But she didn't.

She kept going.......

"AND SHEA WAS ABSENT SO WE COULDN'T TELL HER BUT WE ARE GOING TO TELL HER CUZ SHE IS NOT BEING A REAL FRIEND...."

And then my eyes started to bleed and my brain popped right out of my skull and I sat there listening - tuning her out thinking "She IS NEVER going to Fucking STOP." "Never. Never Gonna STOP."

She wasn't even taking a breath. She went on for like FORTY minutes.

Finally she had finished. I tried to smile - but seriously, I had a headache.

This is why teenage girls have FRIENDS. God help me.