Aero-Hostile

I have a 14-year old daughter, size 6, who is convinced she is still a size 2.  This is nothing unusual.  This country is full of women in denial about their actual pants size, who routinely starve and stuff themselves into their former size—pre-pregnancy, pre-Thanksgiving, pre-audition for the lead in the remake of "The Blob."

I could, of course, buy her blue jeans and cut out the labels.  Sometimes I do.

This is not a problem.

However, she has a 12-year-old sister who actually is a size 2.

This, friends, is a problem.

The problem comes in when it is time to hand down clothes from one sibling to another, a must in the cash-strapped Shoe and never a problem with my sons.  Big Bro would toss a shirt at Lil' Bro with a manly air, as if, overnight, he had morphed into Vin Diesel or the Rock, and say in a deep voice, "I have outgrown this.  He can have it."  In fact, I could transfer an outgrown shirt or pair of pants from one boy's drawer into another and the boys, nine times out of ten, never even noticed.

However, here's a newsflash:  girls are different.  Big Sis would die 10,000 painful deaths before admitting that she has gone up a jeans size (or two) and needs to hand down jeans to Lil' Sis.  She might be induced to hand down jeans that are too long, but not a pair that is (gasp!) too tight in the backside.  Most of the time, she even keeps the too-long jeans.  She simply rolls them up to below the knees and continues to squeeze into them, using power tools if necessary.

If I make a mistake and put all of the size 2 jeans in Lil' Sis's drawer, including the old ones that Big Sis is still squeezing into, all hell breaks loose when Lil' Sis, innocently or not, puts her big sister's old jeans on.

And they think they have hostilities in the Gaza Strip.

Once, Big Sis tried to pull her old jeans off her sister by force, with Lil' Sis kicking and screaming, and nearly succeeded.  The fact of her near success getting them off her little sister should have clued in Big Sis that THEY DO NOT FIT HER, seeing as she must put them on by lying on the floor and rolling them on, while holding her breath, and get them off by the same method in reverse, as if peeling a banana.

One morning, I was drinking my coffee when Lil' Sis came tearing into the room screaming bloody murder with Big Sis in hot pursuit.  "SHE HAS ON MY AEROPOSTALES!" Big Sis bellowed.  I jumped between them, but Lil' Sis escaped and shook her behind saucily.  "See, Mom, they fit me," she gloated, and jumped behind me again as Big Sis tried to grab her by the face, barely missing.  Big Sis's pupils turned red and steam came out of her ears.

The jeans did fit Lil' Sis--they were the same size as her new brand new ones, in fact.  But that was not the point.  The point was that Big Sis's ego was on the line and that Lil' Sis would not survive to get on the school bus in Big Sis's old jeans.

"Give them to her!  They're hers!"

"But Mooooooooom, they fit me!  They don't fit her any more, she's too big."

I intercept Big Sis's fist in mid-air.  "Get 'em off," I repeat.

"But none of mine are cleeeeeean!" Lil' Sis whines.

"Then wear your capris.  One more word and I take your cell phone.  And your snack money."

That usually puts the kibosh on the fight, at least until the "She's wearing MY scrunchie!" (or hair clip, barrette, ponytail holder, hairband, etc.) dispute breaks out, with said scrunchie yanked from offending head, along with some of the offender's hair, causing a scratching-and-slapping war so brutal that I end up confiscating two cell phones, a Nintendo DS, and a digital camera.

I know they don't take this crap after their mother. Of course, I will buy only size 8 jeans new, because they will stretch, and size 10 jeans at the Goodwill, because some other woman undoubtedly overshrunk them in the dryer.  No WAY am I a size 10.  I was a size 8 before I had kids, and I'm a size 8 now.  I wouldn't know about the pants Mom gives me, though.

They all have the tags cut out.