You were that age, once.

So today, as I was going about my going about stuff, I came across a statement that struck a nerve. My little just-turned fifteen year-old not-really-cousin (my uncle, by blood, divorced my favourite aunt, and married this mistress he had an affair with, who already had two kids) had said:
  "Keening for tonight! Can't wait to table-dance!"

So first of all, I think, what the eff is "keening?"
And then I think, these youngsters and their silly lingo.
And then I think to myself, this girl is only fifteen years old, and she wants to dance on tables like a stripper?
Yes. I'm very judgemental.

Let me get one thing straight before I continue: I, too, can be regarded as a youngster. Yes, I am old enough to have a drink (or two or ten), and I am old enough to have a drivers licence, and I am old enough to dance on tables if I like - but I am not some old, wrinkly bat who has nothing better to do than rant about them youngsters and their raucous ways.
But this, what my "cousin" had said, really disgusted me.
It disgusted me, only because a mere few months ago, this very (then-fourteen-year-old) girl had informed me that she uses her admittedly-gorgeous legs to get into clubs.

I cannot comprehend what us legal-aged people could call someone like that. I mean, yes, we call underage kids that jam it at our clubs "twelve year olds," but a girl who (at the time) was only fourteen and was clubbing and drinking like she's eighteen?! Surely that's close to being called an eight year old.
She surely behaves like that.

I'm pretty sure her mother has no cooking clue that her "little angel" is going to big-girl parties and drinking big-girl drinks. And if she does know, then the words running through my mind right now would get me arrested.

I mean, the lack of responsibility in a fifteen year old girl is unbelievable - they just go to clubs to look cool and feel rebellious with a Brutal Fruit in their hands. They don't take into mind the actual dangers of clubbing - that is why there are age limits for entry into clubs. And the irresponsibility of the bouncer to let her in because of those legs! He, too, is asking for something wrong to happen to her.

So, because I have such a close relationship with my mother, I tell her these things, and after a slight expression of shock, she just looks blankly at me and shrugs, with a simple, "You were that age, once."

I guess I have no rebuttal to that, because I was that age once; and, at the age of fifteen, I went to my first club and drank my first self-purchased alcoholic drink. But I didn't use my body parts to get into clubs.

I guess I just feel protective of this not-really-a-family-member cousin of mine. This poor girl is going to look back on her life, and probably have thought, 'I should have waited until I was old enough.'
Or maybe not.
Maybe she'll just be stuck in this attention-craving attitude. 

Either way, its not my problem, and technically, I was that age once.