RE: Trailer Trash 56, 56 pt Beach Towel (Patreon)

/// Sorry guys, had cute ideas, so this one will squeeze in BEFORE 56 pt 3. So this takes place before Tabitha goes to bed that night and the sections will be like that later when this is organized into a proper chapter.

To Tabitha’s dismay, Mrs. Macintire insisted on taking them out on a ‘quick’ shopping trip to K-mart for a nice towel, where Sandra and Hannah combed up and down the aisle analyzing and debating the design of each and every beach towel on display—arguing over them as if locker room towel choice was a critical fashion statement where Tabitha could not afford any faux pas.

“How about this one?”

“Ugh mom no, that one’s too boring.”

“Too boring? Hmmm. You don’t think it’s cute?”

“It has to be cool.”

There aren’t even really that many choices! Tabitha thought with a wry smile. I guess Hannah just was not okay with me mentioning I might use a NINJA TURTLE one, because that’s a BOYS thing, and BOYS BAD.

As a result, Tabitha was presented with Tweety Bird and Scooby Doo beach blankets that Mrs. Macintire thought would be cool, while Hannah was pushing for her to pick a Quest for Camelot towel that was from an animated movie Tabitha had never even heard of. Although there were several Barbie ones, to her surprise Hannah didn’t think them appropriate for a high schooler, insisting they were ‘too girly.’ Which led Tabitha to wonder—were high school teens not supposed to be too girly?

Why such a big fuss in the first place? Tabitha hid her bafflement with a look of amusement. I know Coach Baylor said we should pick something with a design on it, but wasn’t that just so we can differentiate whose is whose?! They’re treating it as though it’s a blouse or a purse or something people will be judging me for.

In any case, Star Wars and Batman towels were directly vetoed by Hannah as being for lame and stupid and ‘for boys,’ which altogether eliminated all of the viable options available at the K-mart. Rugrats, Barney, Winnie the Pooh and Kentucky Wildcats beach towels were also there on display, but disregarded as not up to par with the high standard of excellence and discerning taste Tabitha would be expected to display in the locker room.

It’s so strange, Tabitha smiled to herself. If I’d needed a towel back before, dad would have just bought whichever one I liked the most from that selection. We absolutely would not instead drive ALL THE WAY OUT TO SANDBORO just for a random trivial thing like a TOWEL.

There at the Sandboro mall, they perused Sears and JC Penny—both had a disappointing selection that was remarkably similar to what K-mart had offered—and then tried Spencer’s and Hot Topic. Those would surely offer alternatives at least, featuring the likes of Simpsons, South Park, and various wrestling paraphernalia. These were ‘grown up kids’ stuff, in Hannah’s words, and appropriate for her to show off in high school.

Despite it being a Monday night—a school night—Ziggy was here today, lording over the Hot Topic from its central kiosk with crossed arms and typical dour frown. She was back in full form this time, with her green hair dyed anew and fashioned into punk spikes that pointed out in every direction, and from the way Hannah squeezed and unsqueezed Tabitha’s hand at the sight of Ziggy, Hannah appeared to be super excited to see such a crazy hairstyle.

“Hey!” Tabitha greeted Ziggy with a chipper smile.

“Tabby,” Ziggy had responded with a curt nod that shook her spiked-out hair.

“Do you know her?!” Hannah whispered, awed by their apparent familiarity. “She knows your name!”

“Of course,” Tabitha boasted. “Ziggy is the coolest one here at the Sandboro mall! Everyone who’s anyone knows her. Ziggy, meet Hannah. Hannah; Ziggy.”

“Hi?” Ziggy offered them a wince of reluctance.

“Ziggy?” Hannah’s mouth went wide in surprise. “Her name is Ziggy?! That’s so cool.”

It was strange and surreal visiting Hot Topic with Mrs. Macintire and Hannah in tow rather than being here with Elena—Ziggy seemed to possess a sixth sense that clamped her lips down on any snide remarks in the presence of the overprotective momma bear behind them wearing aviator shades and a bemused smile, and even more so Ziggy wasn’t able to be rude or flippant with an adorable little lamb like Hannah invading her domain and looking around the store with wide eyes.

Makes me wonder how Ziggy would act around a GIGA-KAREN like Mrs. Williams, Tabitha wanted to laugh at imagining it. Super pushy customer and meddlesome mother-type. I picture Ziggy either dying inside, or chewing off her own arm to escape a constant barrage of bitter praises and sweet criticisms.

“Hannah hon—rude to stare!” Mrs. Macintire reminded her daughter. “I’m so sorry, she’s just a menace.”

“It’s whatever,” Ziggy said, putting on her most stoic and unaffected face. “No biggie.”

“I really really like your hair,” Hannah was candid with Ziggy. “Mom, can I—”

“Your hair’s too long to gel up into spikes,” Mrs. Macintire shook her head. “Sorry baby. And, if we cut it short, then you’d have to have short hair the rest of the time, and you said you didn’t want that. Remember?”

“Yeah,” Hannah pouted. “But…”

“With enough hair spray, all things are possible!” Tabitha gave Hannah’s hand a squeeze. “We’ll see about that some other time, that’s a whole day project. Okay?”

“Yeah!” Hannah admired Ziggy’s green spikes with open enthusiasm.

“So… can I help you find anything?” Ziggy asked through gritted teeth, communicating the implicit ‘so that you can leave already’ with her eyes.

“Just looking for a beach towel for school,” Tabitha explained. “For the locker room. We weren’t, uh, satisfied with the normie options everywhere else. You know how it is.”

“Yeah uh, well beach towels, they’re not really in season?” Ziggy remarked in a deadpan voice, casting wary glances at each of them. “But yeah, whatever all we got is over here.”

A small assortment of beach towels, pillowcases, and even rugs was over in the corner of Hot Topic just past the giant wall display of band tees, and Ziggy helped leaf through the rack to show them what was available. Most of what they had was Happy Bunny stuff, which seemed to be a minimalistic clip art smiling rabbit paired with different sarcastic one-liners such as Dead on the Inside and Please Go Away and I Know How You Feel, I Just Don’t Care. Mrs. Macintire made an appreciative noise at seeing those, but both Tabitha and Hannah were unimpressed.

“Yeah, sorry?” Ziggy said as she continued sliding the hangers. “We used to have stuff more suited to um, your type,—Spice Girls and all that, but we cleared them out a while ago. We have some kinda reggae ones? You probably don’t know Bob Marley.”

“Bob Marley?” Hannah asked.

“Yeah, Hannah you know Bob Marley,” Mrs. Macintire reminded her with a grin. “I heard you and Tabby girl singin’ Everything’s Gonna Be Alright together just the other night.”

“Oh. Right,” Hannah nodded. “I know Bob Marley. The Three Little Birds one. Tabitha taught me—it’s not called Everything’s Gonna Be Alright mom, it’s Three Little Birds.”

“Ohh, right, right,” Mrs. Macintire patted the top of Hannah’s head.

“Calming music is nice late at night,” Tabitha explained.

It was hard not to feel a surge of pride at Hannah’s impressive memory retention—at least, for things that caught the little girl’s interest like Disney characters and song lyrics. Hannah of course did not care to commit things like math or sciences to her brain space. But, cartoons, storybook lines, song titles, or lyrics? Hannah could rattle them off endlessly.

“Hannah, do you remember the other one we sing at night? Over the Rainbow?” Tabitha prompted with a small smile. “The one we have your little ukulele for? Do you remember who wrote that?”

“Israel Kamakawiwoʻole,” Hannah enunciated carefully. “From Hawai-i!”

They’d spent an entire giggly night after storybook time teaching Hannah how to pronounce the name right, so there was no way in hell Tabitha was going to fail to bring it up. Is this what it feels like, having a daughter? Having her around just makes me want to show off and brag.

“Right, well yeah,” Ziggy sounded miffed. “From Wizard of Oz or whatever. Well, uh, yeah so there’s Bob Marley if you want, and then after that we just have like, Budweiser and Corona and that kinda stuff. Tabitha—do you drink?”

“Hmm, I only drink the blood of my enemies,” Tabitha teased.

“We only drink the blood of our enemies,” Hannah agreed in a solemn voice. “And—we never go thirsty.”

Practice let them both deliver that gem with a straight face, but Mrs. Macintire behind them couldn’t help but let out a small snrrk of laughter. If Ziggy’s jab there had been intended to have Tabitha blustering or embarrassed in front of Mrs. Macintire here, well… Ziggy was out of luck. While that I’m an older teen and I DRINK and do ADULT STUFF but you’re still basically a KID unsubtle establishing of pecking order would have been effective in making Tabitha feel super awkward around her real parents, no such difficult divide existed between her and the Macintires.

The dichotomy of rebellious teen and nagging parent just wasn’t present here to begin with, perhaps because it simply felt like staying with the Macintires at all in the first place was something like the penultimate rebellious act. There was no deeply ingrained familial friction or years of built up interpersonal tension to be found here, and besides, Sandra was a sassy cool mom, and had a great sense of humor.

Even if Tabitha had joked about getting shitfaced or tossing back shots of tequila with Hannah until they both passed out, both of these Macintires would just take her cue and run with the gag. And then laugh about it together later, with a giddy ‘did you see the look on her face?!’ Also, now Tabitha knew where Officer Macintire had acquired his much lauded Corona Extra towel—because an identical one just like it was hanging up here at Hot Topic.

“Uhhh. Right,” Ziggy once again looked a little speechless. “Well. We might have something over in clearance? Since it’s January, and all.”

The punk teen walked them over to show them where the clearance section was, and then immediately excused herself in a hurry to assist another customer walking in. Sandra arched both eyebrows and grinned at Tabitha, but Hannah was already absorbed in rifling through the stuff on sale in search of a cool beach towel. At this time of year all of the Christmas stuff was marked down in price and on its way out, so they picked out a Coca Cola beach towel there featuring a polar bear wearing a Santa hat that looked pretty good. The design had neat, clean lines, the color scheme was a charming bold motif in white and red, and the polar bear holding up a glass soda bottle was incredibly cute.

What’s not to like? Tabitha held out the fabric so that she could admire it with Hannah.

They brought it up to the register and a silently fuming Ziggy rung them up, and then Tabitha affixed the towel around Hannah’s neck so that the little girl could wear it as a cape. They left the Sandboro mall together in triumph, with both Sandra and Hannah looking incredibly smug. Tabitha wasn’t quite sure how to feel about the brief interactions with Ziggy, but there was nothing she could do about it. At some point in their last meeting Ziggy seemed to have mentally categorized Tabitha as the preppy bitch going for cheerleading, and decided that they would be at odds.

That DOES make me worry for Elena, Tabitha thought to herself. But, I guess those are worries for the future—we don’t even know if we’ll pass muster through the tryouts, yet.

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/// My other idea is along the lines of Tabitha discovering one of the adults in her life has an Omnichord that they let Hannah play with, and realizes 'Rock 01' auto-rhythm setting was sampled for Gorillaz iconic 'Clint Eastwood' and she can sing it. Actually grew up with one myself and remember that, my grandma had an Omnichord. Though I mostly played around strumming the lines pad thing making obnoxious electronic zither noises. Still. Core memory for sure, that really takes me back. Will definitely try to squeeze that idea into the story in future chaps somewhere!