"I hate when you talk about me like I'm not here," Vedder huffed. "Rube does that a lot, too. Mom, the denial thing got old when I was, like, four. And I'm not a pet. I'm capable of feeding myself."

If you let Mason babysit for you, you were teaching your child a great deal about self-sufficiency from the get-go. And, say, if you had the nurturing, parental skills that only a dead girl and a guy on fire could really bring to the table.

"If you don't like Mason dealing, I'll call the cops on him next time," she said, "but only if I get twenty bucks."

It was a fair trade for possible future missed ice cream cones. And the shit she'd get from Mason, whining about being strip-searched again.