Salt in the Wound

I went with my daughter to see Salt. It’s a pretty good movie, full of suspense. When the movie was over my daughter says, “I think Angela Jolie is crazy.”

“Crazy?” I said.

“Yeah, crazy. She’s always playing these parts where she gets beat up and stuff.”

I got to thinking about it, and it’s true. She got whaled on in Salt, and in Mr. and Mrs. Smith, and in those Tomb Raider movies. She’s like the women’s action hero. She’s TYPECAST.

Which I think is a shame because she’s a good actress as far as I can tell.

But you didn’t come here for my musings about Angelina Jolie. Or did you? Because I have other pressing things to talk about, i.e. why I went to the movie with my daughter in the first place. The reason is that we went to church yesterday morning, and she came out of the house wearing a tank top that I felt revealed way too much for a Catholic service. Lest you think it’s just me, every mother I know has this same feeling about their daughters – not that they need to dress more conservatively at church – they need to cover up more all the time.

Oh my gosh, I sound like such a MOTHER! I’m sure all the moms back in the day were beside themselves fretting about our mini skirts.

My daughter thought I was an idiot and freak for mentioning her tank top – AGAIN, which made me defensive and her mad. Being a teenager, her anger turns immediately into rage and then it’s just a tiny baby step to sobbing, breathless tears.

I had to walk a very fine line to keep her from reaching that point, which in turn made me angry that I couldn’t tell her flat out that I don’t want the old men at church lusting at her cleavage.

I couldn’t help myself and said it anyway, which then made her call me a pervert. It was not going well, and I shut up.

When we got to church, I noticed that every teenage girl in the place had on the same tank top and revealing the same amount of cleavage, and that my daughter would not have stood out in a lineup of American girls imitating Britney Spears. However, I couldn’t tell her this because we were reciting the Apostles Creed. Besides, she wasn’t speaking to me.

She continued not speaking to me for most of the day. I mentioned on the way home from church that I wanted to see Salt. She didn’t reply. In general, she will only consent to go ANYWHERE with me if she has absolutely no other prospects on the horizon, including getting beaten with a rubber hose, but it was the best way I could think to try and smooth things over. About 4:00 in the afternoon she came into my office and said, “Salt’s playing at 4:20.”

That’s how we made up, without any apologies, just going to see Angelina Jolie. So I have her to thank for bringing about reconciliation, which is ironic because the movie itself is about tearing things apart.

The movie’s set up for a sequel (that’s all I can say without ruining the whole twisted plot), so I hope I can hold my criticizing tongue until Salt II comes out. I wonder what it will be called. Salt and Pepper? When Salt Met Sugar? Ha ha.

DISCLAIMER: If my daughter finds this blog and realizes I’ve been telling the world about her life she will smack me up side of the head with a 2 by 4. So I officially deny that I wrote this blog or that any of this ever happened. It’s just fiction – like most of my stuff – a fiction of my imagination. Honest.