You Can Dress Them Up

By Betsy R.

Rated: G

Submitted: December 2001

*****

"Clark...? Clark...! Clark Kent!"

Martha Kent was rapidly losing patience with her 18-year- old son. This party was supposed to be for him, for goodness sakes! A party for the new graduate before he went off to the big city for college. And he couldn't even be bothered to greet all of the guests!

She found him in the den, playing on the Atari system he had hooked up there. Though he could always manage to beat all the records on the machines, he loved playing the games nonetheless.

"Clark, what are you doing in here? Don't you realize that Aunt Bertha has been asking about you? She wants to see you before she has to leave!"

Clark didn't even take his eyes off the television. "Oh, Mom, I don't care what that old biddy wants. Did she leave a card?"

Martha marched to the TV and turned it off. She whirled to face her errant son with a gleam in her eye. "Clark Jerome Kent, I hope I raised you with some sort of manners. Now, Get Up, Straighten Your Shirt, Find Your Jacket, Put Your Good Shoes Back On, Straighten Your Tie, and Get Your Butt Outside!"

Something in her tone must have penetrated Clark's teenage brain, because he rather sheepishly got up and started to obey the orders. He grumbled about how unfair it was that his time was being wasted, but he didn't grumble too loud. Martha was still fast enough to twist his ear, and that hurt like nothing he'd ever experienced.

As he was searching for his left shoe, his mother bent and retrieved something from the ground.

"For goodness sakes, Clark, you've gone and ruined this tie pin. I made it for you special, you know that. I wish you'd be more careful!" She looked down at the bent piece of metal - bent from being sat on by a young, invulnerable man. Its red crystal glowed as it had the day she found it in Schuster's field, not far from where she had found Clark. It reminded her of the luck she had in finding him, so she had made the tie pin as her little secret.

She always meant to tell Clark about how special the tie pin was, but whenever he was dressed up - the only time she actually thought of the pin - he always acted like such a teenager. He used up her almost infinite patience. It was as though a tie strangled the good manners and sense out of the boy!

Oh, well. Perhaps he'd grow out of it soon. Or maybe he'd stay just like his father. Men. You can dress them up, but you can't take them out!

Hope you liked my silly story - just thinking that red Kryptonite would explain a lot of my husband's behavior when he's forced to put on a suit... Oh, don't worry. He never reads fanfic. What's that you say? Oh, John! Sorry, honey! Of course I didn't mean you... it was just a literary illusion...

Errp!

Thanks to Kathy for the quick proofing!

3 December 2001

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