Girl Misses Field Trip, Opts for Abortion
Waking up late on Friday morning last week, Lydia Brook, age 11, failed to get her permission slip signed before her parents left for work, which would have let her go on the school field trip to the local pretzel factory, Twisty Tasty, Inc. Lydia told us that she was heart-broken that it would be impossible to get a hold of her parents in time to make the 7:45 a.m. departure, so she sat and cried at the kitchen table. She had at least 15 minutes before her Mom's friend, Mrs. McCuddy would arrive to drive her to school.
Lydia tells us that she is a big fan of reading the comics and Hints from Heloise www.heloise.com and that she thought they would be even better on the morning of March 31st, 2005 since she was feeling "down about the Twisty trip". Apparently, she is also known to read the headlines on the front page, according to her Grandma (name withheld). The headline overpowering the paper that morning was "Growing Number of States Shoot Down Parental Notification for Abortion". Lydia tells us that she was able to get her mind off of the indoor, Twisty Tasty, Inc. mega play center, it's giant machinery and generous samples in no time, with a brand new itinerary for the day. She tells us that she, "...ditched the ride with Mrs. McCuddy, who always talked about her son's football events and drives like a maniac retard" and proceeded to grab the yellow pages and head downtown.
A few hours later, Lydia was sitting at a desk being asked a number of questions about her body, social life and parents, (which she secretly had fun making up the answers to, including asserting that her boyfriend "...was 25 and looked like Brad Pitt"). She also conveyed that she felt quite proud of herself for finding something to do besides "sit in Mrs. Emory's room at school reading Ranger Rick magazines http://www.nwf.org/kids/kzPage.cfm?siteId=3 until the end of the day". Lydia was questioned by a woman she described as a "modern looking, twenty-something year old," but that she didn't remember anything else about who we later identified as Jenna Thomas, one of the intake directors at the For Women Clinic. When we asked Lydia why she would choose to go to an abortion clinic over other activities she might have done while skipping school, she answered, "Heck, if I can't get a free sample of a honey pretzel, twice-glazed in a sweet mustard dip, with a Dixie cup of lemonade made from locally grown lemons without a permission slip, at least I can get an abortion".
A bit more naive for her age about the ways of life than most girls, our Lydia did not connect that to get an abortion she needed to be pregnant first, so was disappointed for the second time that morning when she realized that she had skipped school, taken the downtown #19 all the way to 4th and Parker and went through what she considered an enormous amount of brain work making up the answers to all of this lady's questions, only to be turned down for the procedure after managing to pee into a tiny cup, which she told us "reminded her of the Dixie cups of lemonade that everyone was probably drinking at that very moment". The overall experience was described by Lydia like this, "I was asked a lot of grown-up type questions, which I didn't care, I wasn't embarrassed. They said that my boyfriend sounded kind of old but to please not tell them his name, which is fine because I hadn't thought of one yet. Right as I was leaving, they asked me if I thought my parents would mind it if they gave me a lollipop. I said that they probably would mind since I didn't really know anyone there that well yet."
Lydia tells us that she is a big fan of reading the comics and Hints from Heloise www.heloise.com and that she thought they would be even better on the morning of March 31st, 2005 since she was feeling "down about the Twisty trip". Apparently, she is also known to read the headlines on the front page, according to her Grandma (name withheld). The headline overpowering the paper that morning was "Growing Number of States Shoot Down Parental Notification for Abortion". Lydia tells us that she was able to get her mind off of the indoor, Twisty Tasty, Inc. mega play center, it's giant machinery and generous samples in no time, with a brand new itinerary for the day. She tells us that she, "...ditched the ride with Mrs. McCuddy, who always talked about her son's football events and drives like a maniac retard" and proceeded to grab the yellow pages and head downtown.
A few hours later, Lydia was sitting at a desk being asked a number of questions about her body, social life and parents, (which she secretly had fun making up the answers to, including asserting that her boyfriend "...was 25 and looked like Brad Pitt"). She also conveyed that she felt quite proud of herself for finding something to do besides "sit in Mrs. Emory's room at school reading Ranger Rick magazines http://www.nwf.org/kids/kzPage.cfm?siteId=3 until the end of the day". Lydia was questioned by a woman she described as a "modern looking, twenty-something year old," but that she didn't remember anything else about who we later identified as Jenna Thomas, one of the intake directors at the For Women Clinic. When we asked Lydia why she would choose to go to an abortion clinic over other activities she might have done while skipping school, she answered, "Heck, if I can't get a free sample of a honey pretzel, twice-glazed in a sweet mustard dip, with a Dixie cup of lemonade made from locally grown lemons without a permission slip, at least I can get an abortion".
A bit more naive for her age about the ways of life than most girls, our Lydia did not connect that to get an abortion she needed to be pregnant first, so was disappointed for the second time that morning when she realized that she had skipped school, taken the downtown #19 all the way to 4th and Parker and went through what she considered an enormous amount of brain work making up the answers to all of this lady's questions, only to be turned down for the procedure after managing to pee into a tiny cup, which she told us "reminded her of the Dixie cups of lemonade that everyone was probably drinking at that very moment". The overall experience was described by Lydia like this, "I was asked a lot of grown-up type questions, which I didn't care, I wasn't embarrassed. They said that my boyfriend sounded kind of old but to please not tell them his name, which is fine because I hadn't thought of one yet. Right as I was leaving, they asked me if I thought my parents would mind it if they gave me a lollipop. I said that they probably would mind since I didn't really know anyone there that well yet."
posted by Clarissa @ 9:00 AM
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