NO, I HAVE NOT SEEN TAKEN

Does ANYBODY think it's a great idea for Alisa and her two friends to go to Paris BY THEMSELVES????

She has paid the extra money to change their group reservations so that the three of them leave three days early and she has made reservations at a hotel there. So they are going. And as she keeps reminding me, she will be 18, and she is paying for it with her own money, so I can't stop her.

As she was making this point to me, I was thinking all kinds of really great comebacks. But I refrained from actually saying them. I was the adult. I clamped my mouth shut and just looked at her. I tried to throw daggers with my eyes, but I don't think she noticed.

NOBODY that I have talked to thinks this is a great idea. Granted, none of them have been to Paris. And granted, they worked out the details with the teacher who is in charge of their tour, and who will be there three days after they get there. The teacher who refused to give us parents peace of mind about our teenagers running loose in the streets of Paris for three days, because she "won't be there, and can't guarantee their safety". She did ensure that their hotel is out of the prostitute district. A small consolation, to say the least.

So, for two weeks in June, I am planning on being a basket case. My daughter, raised in what is quite possibly the most sheltered valley on earth, who has never even been to Salt Lake by herself, is flying off to France. Alone. No; worse than alone, she is going with two other girls. Three eighteen year old brains are way scarier than one.

And guess what they are going early for?

To shop.

And sleep.