Satanic Queen of the Freshmen

So the daughter has been participating in the school play for the past month as a member of the stage crew. I'm cool with that; it's the first extracurricular activity she's really been enthusiastic about, and it's something I did in high school and adored. She's been staying after school for ever-longer periods as the date of the play approaches, requiring a parent to fetch her - and the school is not exactly in our neighborhood. More like a half-hour drive on the freeways. But it's cool, like I said, because she's getting involved, and it gives us some leverage to exert if her grades start slipping.

Well, yesterday in the car, she's telling me all about the events of the day, and she tells me that she and fellow stage crew members are going to make their own crew t-shirts. Black with long sleeves and brown lettering so that they can wear them while shifting scenery, and complete with nicknames for everyone. Her nickname?

"Satanic Queen of the Freshmen"

Great.

I mean, it's not like I was praying that she'd go through her adult life as "Muffy" or anything like that, but this really is taking things to the opposite extreme. She swears to me that the "Satanic" part only refers to the fact that her birthday is on Halloween (I'll expand on that below), and that the "Queen of the Freshmen" alludes to her take-charge nature and lack of proper awe for upperclassmen. It's a euphemism for "bossy". She takes after her father, I swear.

The best part of a nickname like that is that, being as long as it is, it probably won't last more than a couple of weeks. And that's when swimming starts, so she'll be able to exchange it for something more...aquatic. Or something.

So, about the whole Halloween birthday thing, as promised. First, it really is her birthday - I was there and I remember. Anyway, a while back, my husband was out in our garage doing something, and he was suddenly besieged by a bunch of little boys who live a couple of houses down the cul-de-sac from us (I told you this was suburbia). What with one thing and another, the talk turned to holidays, and he let slip that our daughter's favorite holiday was Halloween, because it was also her birthday.

"That's the Devil's Day," said one of the boys. "She must be bad, if her birthday's on the Devil's Day."

Yeah. Gimme that prime-time religion.

These kids' parents are home-schooling them so that they can have a say in whom they associate with. I would think that turning them loose saying things like that would do most of their work for them.

It follows as a matter of course that we're turning the front of our yard into a vision of Hell this year - as much as I can stand to drive by, anyway (I don't like scary movies). Just to make sure I don't have to listen to that stuff very often.

Did I mention that the stage crew T-shirts are going to have cockroach pictures on them, because that's how the play's director refers to the crew?

How feminine.