We took my cousin out shopping last night. She constantly talks about how her social services staff never has time to take her clothes shopping so she doesn't get a chance to use the gift cards her family sends her for Christmas, and she needs new clothes for church.

Last week she told me the zipper on her only warm coat broke and she doesn't know where to get it fixed - a dry cleaners or where - and these cheap coats from Walmart just don't last, so she wants to go look for one at the mall. As if JC Penney's clothes are that much better quality than Walmart's clothes - they just cost more. No matter where she gets it, a coat or jacket only lasts her one season because she is so hard on things. Same with athletic shoes and watches.

We said okay, we'll take her to the thrift store where she used to work because she has been saying she wants to go there for the past couple of years, and take her to the mall to shop for clothes. When we picked her up we said 'show us that broken zipper' and turned out she'd slammed it in a car door and crimped the tab shut. So we pried it open with a screwdriver and it worked again.

She didn't like this and insisted that she couldn't work the zipper herself 'because I can't see it' but we told her don't be silly, it's fine. So she zipped it up all the way and put the hood up on the jacket (it was 60 degrees outside) and off we went.

But then she was in a snit and didn't want to look at the merchandise at the thrift store, and didn't want to go to the mall that she'd been talking about for a couple of weeks.

We took her to Walmart to pick out some slippers from us, but she refused to look at possible clothing from there (that's where the gift cards are good), so we took her to the buffet (and she let me know tonight that it upset her stomach horribly) and dropped her off in time to watch Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune.

Tonight she called to tell me she wants to go shopping again - at that mall she refused to go to last night, preferably after Christmas when things will be on sale - because she wants to buy Christmas clothes to wear this time of year. This is because today she went to a Sunday School Christmas luncheon and other people had seasonal vests and sweaters on. She has a Christmas vest, but always forgets about it until I remind her.

And she wants to look for church clothes and a new coat because she doesn't know if the brown coat goes with some Christmas outfit that she suddenly remembered she needed to coordinate with. I don't know where she is going to get the money to pay for all that since she just has the Walmart cards to spend on clothes.

I reminded her that we offered to take her there last night and at the time she said she didn't need anything and refused to go. But tonight she insisted that we let her know next time we're going shopping so we can take her along. We never go to any malls - last night was a special trip for her, and she blew it.

We have no way of knowing what kind of mood she'll be in the next time we make arrangements for a shopping trip with her: requires permission from her staff, and the actual experience is an ordeal because she can never make up her mind so we spend hours watching her agonize over what she wants, and listening to her complaining that nothing fits her, and there is no chair in the fitting room, and any number of other excuses to not try things on, but of course she can't buy anything without trying it on, and she should have written down her size before she left home. It always reminds me of You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.

Then, she told me she hopes we don't have any more flooding in Colorado because that last flood caused me not to be here to celebrate her birthday. I didn't point out that I'm missing her birthday again this year, as well as the Super Bowl party we usually throw for her to come to.

Yes, she's challenged in the mental department, but as she keeps telling me, she's a grown woman and needs to act like one, so I hold her responsible for her decisions.