..i feel stupid and contagious..

Teenagers are retarded.

My niece is 15. She's is an absolute social nightmare. Her hair isn't blue and she has no facial piercings, but she has the ability to stand in a room and with one comment suck every bit of common sense out of it in a matter of 30 stupid teenage seconds.

How is this possible? Was I like this in my teen years? Were my friends like this? MY parents!? Are teenagers getting worse or are am I just now maturing to a stage of social awareness that makes me want to stick the closest foreign object into her ear and poke around.

She got out of school on her Christmas break on a Friday. She went to her friend's house that evening and stayed until Wednesday, Christmas Eve. She got her presents, ate the feast, played the games, and left the next morning for her friend's house until New Years Eve. On New Years Eve she brought her friend back with her to eat the feast, play the games, watch the fireworks and leave with her the next morning to be gone until school starts on Monday.

She says she doesn't hate us. We're not all her "parents" so she can't use that flippant excuse. Lots of teens have a "cool" aunt. Even if it's not me, she has more than one option. We pay attention to her, we buy her things, accept her the way she is, compliment her, tease her, love and hug her, and even threaten her occasionally to be the best person she can be. What part of that does she not want to be around? Do we mean nothing to her?

No. Who? We. We mean nothing.

Now, there are some signs this is strictly teenage behavior and not to be feared for eternity's sake. For example: when she likes an article of clothing she wears it every day, appropriately or not. She speaks quickly and inaudibly like she's incapable of opening her mouth. 'Like' has become the most important word in her vocabulary and Twilight has become the life she'll never lead.

As for other behaviors that heed concern or squeeze my brain through her fingers of teen perception she shows a shaky needle on the crazy scale. Whoever said, "no question is a stupid question", never answered my niece.

A typical conversation with my niece goes like this-

Niece: All reminds me of hall, but not if you add pass. Cause that would be hall-pass and my parents said I'm not allowed to ask the teacher if I can have a hall-pass.

Me: They wouldn't say that if there was no logical reason for them to be concerned about your abuse of hall-pass privileges.

Niece: Well, I don't really need to go to the bathroom 4 times during class. But what they don't understand is that Edward visits Bella when she's in the bathroom to talk about love and stuff and why they can't be together because he's doomed to the sacred awesomeness of the night and sometimes it makes me feel better about myself if I can go to the bathroom. I like to wear tight shirts because it drives the boys crazy. I mean no i don't. What? Sometimes my friends and boys say I talk too much but I can't help it. So my friends and I (after I correct her grammar) are designing our own spring dance dresses and mine is going to be just like Bella's but different. Well, not really like hers at all, but it's going to be sorta like hers. The color will be different but I need the shape to be all funky because that's the way my friends and I like to do things.

~Now insert LIKE into that paragraph 48 times, wherever you want, doesn't matter, and read it again and that is how it sounded before I deciphered it.

There are too many citations and not enough patience to validate her weirdness and lack of savoir-faire. I guess there is nothing to do but give it time. See it out. Try to correct her when it's important and make her feel as conventional, average, and normal as the other cracked-out teenagers. And pray she'll eventually grow into a human being.