What happens next?

Odd girl out

The next morning Buffy came down to breakfast and noticed that Joyce was wearing a far shorter dress than she usually wore. She also seemed to have done something else different -- something Buffy couldn't figure out until she saw her mother's bra lying on the kitchen counter.

For that matter, there was yet another bra lying on the counter right next to it.

"Since when do you leave your laundry on the kitchen counter, Mom?" asked Buffy.

"Oh, I just took that off while I was cooking," said Joyce. "I hope you don't mind."

"Wait!" exclaimed Buffy. "You're not wearing a bra?"

"You talk like my mother, Buffy," said Joyce. "Of course I'm not wearing a bra. I'm surprised that you wear one with all the hot weather we have in this part of the country."

"It's just that you're so conservative most of the time..." said Buffy.

"I couldn't have been that conservative or else I would have never had you," said Joyce. "Besides, that thing with Faith yesterday was a wake-up call. Perhaps I really do need to change my ways."

"And not wearing a bra is going to do that?" asked Buffy.

"Hey!" exclaimed Dawn as she entered the kitchen. "Don't knock it. I don't like wearing a bra either. And according to Mom, I don't have to wear one anymore."

Buffy raised an eyebrow in her mother's direction. "Really, Mom?"

"Well, she is getting older," said Joyce. "It's about time she makes her own wardrobe choices."

"Speaking of wardrobe choices..." Buffy started to say.

At that moment, Joyce reached under her dress and pulled down her panties, taking great care to step out of them before placing them on top of her discarded bra.

"There," she said. "Now I feel more comfortable."

"Wow!" said Dawn. "Maybe I should try that."

"You're over eighteen now, Dawn," said Joyce. "Knock yourself out."

"I really need to see Willow," said Buffy.

And with that, she ran out the door, trying hard not to imagine what else that her mother and her sister might be thinking of discarding.