I came to the gate, guarded by the gold lions, and went out to thesidewalk in front. I remembered where I had parked my car, and walked inthat direct...on. I noticed another peculiar thing happening: theattention I was getting was different than I was used to. At one point,I stopped in the middle of a block, looking back and forth up and downthe street for my car. A couple walked by, and I cuaght the guyeyballing me. Then, the woman reacted with a tight-lipped glare. I stoodmotionless a few. I went to her school at 1:15 like always, happy to pick her up on a marvulous Friday. I didnt tell her yet, but I decided to take her with my pay raise to go see her role model Elmo in a live concert. I waved as I saw her run out of the school gates. Wow, I thought, she is really excited to get out today. But when I looked closer, I nearly was about to cry out in anger. Two higher grader boys were throwing rocks at my baby girl! If it wasnt a school zone, I probably would have got out of my. “He doesn’t have to,” I said. “Lara can take you up, or me. You don’t need both of us.”Tommy made some noises about not needing a chaperone, but I felt that he was just a bit too unpredictable to leave on his own. With our luck he’d sneak onto the quad lift and go to the summit!“Go for it, Lara,” I said.With some reluctance, Muireann pushed off toward the lift alongside my sister.“Oh, to have functioning eyes,” Tommy lamented. “You need to tell me how she manages! Better than me, or not. I. One day I said:"Carol, who wears the trousers?"She said:"We both wear trousers, Nicky." That's not what I meant."I didn't realise it then, that she had understood exactly what I meant andthat this comment signified that up to now we had both made decisionstogether but that now she was taking over."Who makes more money?" I said.She accepted that I made more money than her and that I thought sheaccepted that I wore the trousers. I could not have been more wrong.That day she started playing a.