“I’ll be 13 in like, 3 months” said the boy to his
parents, and quite frankly a little too offhandedly considering the grave ramifications
of such a statement. And there it was, out there like a giant elephant, sucking
all the air out of the room.
Up until
this point the family was content to exist in a lovely state of denial, devoid
of any sullen teenagers and the accompanying eye rolling, incessant texting and
schlumping around the house muttering about how their parents are deliberately trying
to ruin their lives.
The parents looked at each other and simultaneously attempted
to rearrange their facial expressions to something less horror stricken.
“Mom, are you
crying?” asked the boy.
“Dad, why is mom crying? Oh my god…you’re crying too?
What is wrong with this family?”
The parents knew then that the winds of change were blowing
through the household and troubled winds they were, for they would bring
parties with girls, and mood swings and general grief for both child and adult
alike, and the parents knew this because they had both been teenagers at one
point. They recalled the hormones and acne and moping, and they realized almost
at once that it was indeed payback time.
The man, in particular, remembered certain events in
his own family that had turned his parent’s hair gray. There were three of
them, all two years apart, meaning of course that for a time, all were
teenagers at once. Looking back, it wasn’t even really a fair fight and it remains
a miracle that the parents never went over the edge and shot any of them.
The sister was the oldest, so her role was to begin
wearing down the parents first in order to widen the path for the two brothers.
And so, despite her accident prone nature, she somehow managed to get her driver’s
license and subsequently had to make the first call home to announce that she
had driven the car into – or more accurately through- a snow bank and could
someone please come and get her out? In short order, the sister became quite
adept at running out of gas and sliding into ditches, but her specialty was
bumping into the other vehicles in the driveway. It was a mystery how someone
so athletically inclined and who could expertly navigate a sailboat through a
crowded start line at a race could not park in a double wide driveway without
bashing into at least one other car.
In the years that followed, the brothers also each managed
to crack up different cars to various degrees. At one point, the younger one somehow
actually careened off the side of the house, but by that time the wagon was so
beat up, the parents may not have even noticed the new scrape. The middle
brother nearly wrote off the Toyota, while skipping school no less, thereby
earning points for a double whammy. Actually, he was on a lunch break, but by
the time the police were finished charging him, it had run into third period
thereby requiring a call from the vice principal. I think by the end, the parents were told by
the insurance company that if they filed any more claims, they would have to
hand over one of the children to complete a two year internship at the brokerage.
The other unenviable duty the sister had to perform
was to be the first to vomit in the car after calling for a ride home after a
party. So, not only was the father forced to stay up until midnight to play
taxi but he had to drive home in a stinky station wagon. The upshot of this was
the parents became wise to the dangers of picking up drunks, and would usually
encourage a designated driver amongst the teen’s peers.
The brothers, being boys and exposed to the general
short circuiting found in the brains of all teenage males, were prone to
wreaking havoc and causing stress for the parents in other areas. Jumping off
bridges at the Green River, jumping over cars in the parking lot at the ski-hill
and driving around aimlessly at night with four or five other dimwits in the
wagon, trying to relieve boredom by committing various acts of mischief and general
civic damage.
“Why is there a yield sign in your bedroom?” the
father would ask.
“We found it in the ditch.”
“Well. Take it back, and make sure you bolt it on
properly. You could cause an accident”
All three of them it seemed, were able to eat their
own body weight each week, so the mother took to shopping at the No Frills, stocking
up on bulk items with the non-descript yellow labels. Entire loaves of bread would disappear between
after school and dinner time, and enough milk was being consumed to sustain a small
village in Tibet. Amidst this, the house
somehow became a favourite hangout for various hungry teens and the brothers
were fond of feeding their friends at odd hours.
“Where are all the hamburgers?” the mother would ask.
“We ate them last night when we got home.”
“At midnight? Tell your friend Danny to eat at home
once in a while.”
It was around this time that the father started
drinking Guinness, the only beer he could find that none of his offspring were
willing to steal.
Remarkably during this time there was only one
suspension from school, involving the elder brother – a non-incident really - that
was more of a misunderstanding between him and the vice principal as to the
definition of mooning. The youngest brother did manage to get himself placed on
academic probation (or as some may say, kicked
out) from university. Twice.
Fortunately, the father had pursued a similar route in his academic career,
so this provided a sense of camaraderie between them, thereby lessening the
fallout. The mother was not impressed.
The mother was a worrier at heart, so the older two at
least had the sense to lie to her when they took the younger one to his first
Grateful Dead concert. She found out eventually, but by that time, so many
concerts and road trips had passed that her coping strategy was to stay at the
cottage all summer thereby avoiding the gory details. She would leave them
money for food, which would be subsequently divided into an equitable 80-20 split
between beer and food. She had an inkling, but they never looked badly
malnourished, so all was well.
To round things out, there were speeding tickets, break-ups
and the inevitable crappy fast food jobs, which made the parents realize that
whoever had the audacity to say that your teenage years are the best of your
life, obviously never vomited out the back window of a Ford Tempo doing 120 km,
because the driver refuses to stop, while the other four occupants of the car
are singing Iron Maiden’s Run to the
Hills at full volume, even though there is no radio.
Remembering all of this, the boy’s father looked at
his son, a boy of twelve and three quarters, and realized that it’s not just
the parents who will suffer but the teens as well, and this gave him a small
measure of comfort.
Then again, the sister did turn out okay with a Doctorate
in Rehabilitation Science, although she still insists on driving like a blind
person. The youngest (much to his mother’s relief) finished his schooling
before he was thirty and found a career as a chef and later became a teacher. The
elder brother also became a teacher and actually went to work for the Principal
who many years before had suspended him in the name of all things decent. He
also keeps a blog, which his son never reads. Hopefully.
