Major Lulz from the Sheltered - Chapter 3

And the lulz just keep on comin'! (Chapter 1, Chapter 2)

In today's episode of Slut-Shaming for Dummies Life's Choices, our most improbably named 18-year-old mentally debates adoption and single motherhood and meets a proselytizer with a porn name in a parking lot*.

Two hours later, Leona emerged from the counseling room of the Lewis County Pregnancy Center. Mrs. Black hugged her before she headed out to her car. Sarah waved at her and called a good-bye from behind the receptionist counter and little Luke added his own version good-bye.

You mean waving goodbye? Children under the age of 1 can handle that amazing feat. Luke is supposed to be 3, I believe.

Leona smiled to herself as she got into her car. The people she had met at the Center were so cheerful and sweet...made her feel welcome and wanted. Her day felt brand new.

Christians can cleanse not only souls, but days, too!

She decided to stop by her favorite coffee shop and grab a latte. She hadn’t had one for a while and thought she needed the treat.

Because that's what liberals do, right? They drink overpriced coffee-based beverages, yeah, I think.

As Leona sipped her hot latte,

ahem. speaking as an official liberal drinker of overpriced coffee-based beverages, I can tell you that lattes are assumed to be hot unless specified otherwise. "Hot latte" is a weird phrase to someone who actually does visit coffee shops on a regular basis. (Well, mostly Dunkin' Donuts. And I don't generally get lattes, but still, the point stands.)

she thought back to her conversation with Mrs. Black. The woman made her feel as if she had known her all her life. It was so easy to talk to her...to tell her what her life was like. She was able to tell her about Jerry and how he had left her after finding out that she was pregnant. Mrs. Black seemed to really understand what Leona was feeling and sympathized with her. But even after her talk with Mrs. Black, Leona still felt that she wouldn’t be able to keep the baby. It wasn’t fair to him or her that they should grow up with just one parent - never knowing their biological father.

Full stop. Your average, normal, liberal teen would never think this. Maybe 1 in a 100 might possibly, I suppose, but no. It is assumed in this day and age that teen mothers will raise their own children, probably without the equally teen father around to help. And who thinks "biological father" like that, anyway? Why not just "father"?

When she had asked Mrs. Black for other alternatives, the older woman had given her several. Carry the baby to full-term and keep him/her or give birth to him/her and then the baby up for adoption or foster.

That's actually not several alternatives, that's two, and only one of those is an alternative to keeping the baby herself. (I really fail to see the difference between "foster" and "adoption" in this instance if Leona doesn't want to consider raising the baby without the father who has already left her.)

Leona was sure that it would never work to keep the baby. And she wasn’t sure about the whole adoption process. At least she could make sure that the baby would go to a better home. But...hadn’t she been thinking all along that the baby shouldn’t have to grow up not knowing his or her father? Why would she want to give her baby away and for it not to know both of its parents?

Well, yeah, actually. Good point. Never gets addressed.

Abortion seemed like such an easy choice. She wouldn’t have to worry about telling her parents, or about the whole adoption procedure, or even have to have a huge belly in front of her for 9 whole months! How embarrassing would that be - having to tell everyone, who asked her, that she was a single mom?

Um, is Leona an elephant? She's already 3 months pregnant, so why would she have a pregnant belly for 9 more months? 6 more months, absolute tops. Also, while everyone who sees you will forget etiquette and normal social rules and quiz you endlessly about the baby, nobody will ask you about the father. Especially not if you look young. Except for really judgmental religious types. They'll jump right in with the slut shaming.

So then some woman is careless, well, not really at all**, with her child and Leona screams at her and then realizes- gasp!- she was about to kill her own baby, so how can she complain if someone else lets their baby play in traffic! So then she runs out to her car and cries and then some nice (probably Christian) boy asks if she's okay, and we get this:

She wasn’t sure if she should roll down her window or not. He might be one of those lunatics that always wandered around large parks. But he seemed harmless enough and genuinely concerned. Besides, he didn’t look loony. His dark hair was combed neatly and he had on a nice polo shirt and slacks.

Yes, large parks (which is not where Leona is, btw) are always mobbed by the mentally ill/psychopathic killers. It's hard to even find a place for a picnic anymore, what with with all the crazies taking up the space. Nothing like insulting the mentally ill in the middle of your slut shaming.

So, the not-obviously-a-serial-killer (who is?) is Peter Gunn (a porn name if I ever heard one) who hands her a Bible. Then we learn that if two people in one day tell you about this Jesus fellow- who's that?- it must be true.

Leona tossed the Bible onto the passenger seat of her car and started the engine. She had one of those at home, but never read it. Why was God suddenly coming into her life? Sure, she had heard about Him at that Sunday school that she used to go to before she had decided to stay home from church altogether. Her parents sometimes talked about Him, but when she had told them to lay off being preachy to her, they had. They didn’t go to church anymore either.

I guess our family just sort of got bored with it, she thought to herself.
But first that DJ on the radio station and now this guy that just happened to stop at her car and hand her this Bible. This was too much.

Why was her life changing so fast?

Wow, a DJ on a religious station and some guy in a parking lot both talked about god on the same day- it's too much! Why, god, why?!

*I bet you anything this is the plot to an actual porno, and the name is something like "Parking Lot Pussy 5".

**If you haven't had children what happens might come across as extreme carelessness, but as someone who has raised a small child, I can tell you that no matter how careful you are, children get hurt. It's what they do. They also eat dust bunnies, shove pennies up their noses and trip over chalk lines. All in the 24 seconds it takes you to pee.