YOUR FAULT

Last week...oh, whatever. Susan pulls up in her Volvo and looks across her driveway at Lynette, who is -- of course -- screaming at her kids in her front yard. "HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO TELL YOU? DO YOU WANT A SPANKING?" she shrieks. The boys all scream "yeah!" Oh, the more I hate Lynette, the more I sort of love her little asshole children. As Susan gets out of her car, watching this spectacle, MAVO explains that "there is a look that parents of well-behaved children give to the parents of the not so well-behaved. The look that says, 'You should learn to control your kids.'" I think Susan's face is more "You shouldn't have fired your nanny," but whatever. Lynette's squealing sort of trails off when she sees Susan watching her with a mixture of pity and disapproval. Lynette shrugs, and Susan sort of pretends she wasn't watching as she heads into the house with her bag of groceries. MAVO further explains that it was easy for Susan to feel smug with a daughter like Julie, since Julie was a perfect child who brought home straight As, helped her mother with the chores, and cleaned up Susan's mess when she, say, ran down the postman on her bike. "To her mother's way of thinking, Julie was the perfect child," MAVO says, as Susan opens her front door and finds Zack and Julie kissing -- rather chastely, really -- at the kitchen table. They jump apart, and Susan sort of flips her lid. "Were you just kissing my daughter?" she asks. Zack looks around, confused. "Um. A little?" he answers tentatively. Susan drops the groceries and wonders, quite stridently, what on earth they were thinking. Julie tells her to calm down, but Susan presses on, telling Zack that Julie is only fourteen years old! Julie looks deeply mortified. I have to admit, my sister is just fifteen, and if I walked in on her kissing the local boy from the mental institution, I might freak out a bit myself. ["But how old is Zack supposed to be? What's the problem with her being fourteen, unless he's like thirty-five? Not to mention that the only reason the two of them were thrown together in the first place is that Susan dragged Julie into her lame-o investigation." -- Wing Chun] Zack gets up and gathers his books, commenting that he should probably get going. "See you Friday?" Julie calls after him. Susan, of course, wonders what Friday is, and Julie explains that Zack is taking her to "the dance." Susan is like, "Think again, missy." Julie rolls her eyes and tells her mother to "chill." Oh, not a good plan, kid. "Don't tell me to chill! I have no intentions of chilling!" Susan yells. "WHATEVER. I'm taking out the trash," Julie spits, grabbing the trash bag and stomping out the front door. Susan follows her, yelling, as MAVO explains that sometimes, parents of the not-so-well-behaved children have a look, too. "It says, 'Welcome to the club.'" Lynette watches Julie and Susan scream over the trash cans and shoots Susan an incredibly smug and bitchy look. I want to punch her in the face.