CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- "It's not fair," my middle-schooler complained as she wiped at her shirt with some tape. "Going goth isn't an option for me."

"Why not?" I asked. "You look good in black."

"Black angora?" said Celeste, displaying her T-shirt. It appeared to have been first misted with honey and then rolled in hair. "What self-disrespecting goth would go out like this? It's hard to pull off hard-shell when it's clear you've been cuddling a bunny."

Dust bunnies aren't the only creatures that reside in her room. There are live bunnies, too. Plus regular visits from other menagerie members.

"You're hardly the goth type anyway," I said. "You're too -- what's the word for it? Happy?"

She shrugged.

"Someone who owns more than one chicken hat isn't cut out to be goth," I said.

(Note to Town Center Mall patrons: If you wondered about the tired-looking woman out shopping with her chicken recently, all I can say is I shouldn't have dared her.)

"Besides," I continued. "That goth look is so dated. Teenagers have been trying to shock folks with piercings and black clothes and black lipstick since the Dark Ages. Your generation didn't invent it. Come to think of it, I think I have a picture around somewhere of Grammy and PopPop with matching nose rings."

"I thought those were your folks," husband Geoff said from the kitchen, where he'd apparently been eavesdropping.

"You're probably thinking of that picture of Dad in a trench coat with his hair in a Mohawk, and Mom rocking her stiletto boots."

"I remember that picture," Celeste said. "Isn't that the one where you have a dinosaur bone through your nose?"

"People say piercings are no big deal. They can heal," I said. "But I didn't think that one was ever going to close. For months, when I ran, the hole made this chirpy, whistling sound. I'd get chased by songbirds, looking to mate."

"You and your friends should try to come up with something original," said Geoff. "Something other teenagers haven't already done."

"How about this," Celeste said, after pondering quietly for a while. "What if we dress all in white, head to toe. White lipstick. White hair. We'll call ourselves Mock Goths, or Moths."

"Cool," said Geoff. "You can leave powdery stuff behind you."

"Oh, yeah," I said. "And you can bang into lights over and over again."

Celeste nodded, clearly liking the idea.

"And we can lurk outside doors and rush in the second it opens," she said. "Drop into food. Annoy cats."

"You do that already," said Geoff.

"Or you could do like I do," I said. "Wear black anyway and pretend not to notice the hair."

Celeste was momentarily quiet again.

"You wear so much black because of its magical slimming properties, right?" she asked. "But you wouldn't have to try and trick the eye at all if you added a single item to your wardrobe. Something that would distract from both the fat and the fur."

And that is how I came to have a chicken hat of my own.

Reach Karin Fuller at karinful...@gmail.com.