Flowers for Alfrednon

I attended a school meeting of a precocious 17-year-old girl diagnosed with mild intellectual disability and oppositional defiance disorder, the latter of which is more relevant to our story. Doreen is succeeding rather colorfully by parental arrangement in vocational technical school learning the fine art of horticulture. Her social skills are a different subject all together.

During the meeting, Doreen brought it to everyone’s attention that she desried to give her brain-injured teenage boyfriend her latest floral bouquet creation. The mother kept saying men do not accept flowers, do not embarrass him on the short bus, the last of which is a pejorative descriptive term to say the least.

My client felt the need to advocate for herself. She replied that horticulture was her career choice. Doreen proudly wanted and needed to show him what she created. She also wanted him to take the flowers home for him to display as a show of her affection. As her social worker, I felt that she made a good argument from her polarized perspective but she pouted under her mother's dominion.. The mother finally relented that her daughter could do what she wanted but that she was going to be sorry.

Doreen sprouted right up in her chair, much like a morning glory...She barked, "No, I won't be sorry. If Alfred doesn't accept my flowers, I'm going to punch him in the f**cking face."