Went to get a mani today. . . In walks this rather unattractive man and a young adult woman probably between 17 and 20 who looked like a clone of the man (unibrow and all)  Then in came a slender blonde relatively attractive woman who sat down beside, for the lack of a better name, Mr. Cyclops.   The blonde woman IMMEDIATELY took a "back seat" while DAD and his daughter started chatting with the nail technician and the father (came out in conversation with the nail tech) continued to hover over his what looked to be mini-wife supervising every aspect of her manicure and eyebrow wax.  He checked out her nail varnish colours and everything. 

The adult blonde woman who looked NOTHING like Mr. Cyclops nor his young adult daughter stayed in the background and went and fetched things from the vehicle for what seemingly was her SD.  Looked like she was treading on eggshells and would sheepishly smile and nod as Mr. Cyclops called the shots on how he wanted his daughter's nails done. . .he urged her to get a pedicure as well now that she was there blah blah blah.   I noticed the adult woman would only touch Mr. Cyclops hand when the daughter wasn't looking.  And of course, the daughter gave out an air of extreme self-assuredness; as though she'd always been pampered from day one.

After my mani, I headed to buy a few quick groceries and at the grocery store, a mother, her daughter  (looked alike) and a guy (who was obviously NOT the dad sheerly by physical characteristics) were hand in hand and tra la laing into the store, having pleasant conversations and, one could only assume stepDAD, was taking the lead; directing his step daughter and making chit chat all the way up to the register.  The BM was completely at ease with seemingly stepDAD and her daughter having a good ol' time.

It's GOOD to be the stepDAD.