If you glance away from your food, someone takes it.

Clothes left on the stairs get tossed onto the porch.

We delay starting the washer until someone's in the shower.

And we occasionally wave goodbye using only one finger.

But my favorite tradition involves what my daughter and I do shortly after the close of a show she's been in.

It started with tights Celeste had to wear for a dance recital when in the second grade. One pair was too short, making her walk like a penguin. The other pair was too long, bunching so much at her ankles they looked like a Shar-Pei's. Since there was no size in between, she suffered through the performances, making certain not to miss a single opportunity to voice her annoyance. She was hardly a trouper.

After the show ended, we decided to have a ceremonial burning of the tights. With much fanfare, we placed them on the grill and set them on fire.

It was most satisfying for both of us.

Nearly every show since then has included at least one Item of Constant Aggravation that we've enjoyed incinerating after the close. In this latest show, though, her costume was perfect, her shoes comfortable, her socks tolerable. Her only complaint was over the ice-cold and stinky gray hair paint that helped her look like an old widow.

Three of Celeste's friends, Madi, Melon and Alexia, were standing nearby when I began spraying her hair before the last show.

"I wish we could burn what's left of that hair paint," Celeste said, not wanting to break post-show tradition. "Hey! Can we use what's left on your hair?"

I agreed. Not realizing I'd bought several more cans than we'd needed.

After the show, Celeste, her friends and I returned to our house, where I sat in our yard, flinching at the cold spray as they turned my hair crunchy and gray. (Along with my ears, forehead and neck.)

"I dare you to go somewhere in public like that," one of them said.

They didn't even have to make it a double-dog dare. I was game. But I had one condition: They had to look goofy, too.

Years of dance and children's theater and yard sales have supplied us with an impressive collection of strange apparel, clip-on hairpieces and makeup, so it wasn't long before their creative makeovers outshined my crisp hair.

Since I'd been wanting to buy a few mums anyway, we headed over to the farmers market.

I suppose I should've anticipated that the four preteens would soon leave me, as they were intent on finding people to interview for a Web show they were making. What I didn't anticipate was how strange I would feel walking around with a hairdo befitting a mad scientist.

I could hear the girls talking loudly a few booths down as I paid for some mums.

"I bet I know which kids are yours," the man said as he stared at my hair.

I pretended not to know what he was talking about. "I don't have any kids."

(Years back, when I was in my last trimester of pregnancy and resembling a whale, my favorite thing was for a stranger to ask when I was due. I'd tell them I wasn't pregnant.)

The man looked from my hair to the kids and laughed. "I'm not sure I'd claim them either," he said. "It's no wonder you're gray."

In this case, Mother Nature had a head start on the girls with sending me down the road to a gray-haired tradition, but I expect Celeste and her friends will keep finding ways to speed it along.

See pictures from the farmers market outing on Karin Fuller's blog at thegazz.com.

Fuller can be reached via e-mail at karinful...@cnpapers.com.