Is parenting teenagers some form of penance for having impure thoughts?
Yes, I read the World According to Garp in Middle School and had impure thoughts. Consequently, I was sentenced to life with teenage boys, thrice. (Yeah, I know I have four kids, but I’m feeling pretty optimistic about my three year old girl’s teenage years. Plus, I have time to recover between the last two. She will be 9 when My Child turns 2o. Yeah, I know that girls mature earlier, but let me have my blissful ignorance about it for a few years, please.)
This morning, I was trying to wake the dead, so I left my phone next to My Child. No, it was not locked. I was hoping it would wake him up, so I didn’t have to duplicate the Anita Blake resurrection sequence including chicken, goat or cow sacrifices.
I walked out of the room to check on my feverish Girlie, watching Sesame Street reruns on the Kindle. When I returned My Child was awake holding my phone.
“What are you doing?”
“It’s updating.”
“WHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATTTTTTTTTTTTTTT! I left it here to wake you up. NOT for you to update my phone and ruin all the settings.”
“It did it all by itself.”
“What the Hell No it didn’t. This is why I have a Mac, because it only updates when you push the little button saying ‘Do you want to update?’ and you PUSHED THE BUTTON.”
“It’s not your phone. If you see a question on the screen, you should have ASKED ME. You don’t get to make unilateral decisions for someone else’s electronic devices. You don’t even let me touch your phone, much less update your settings. Why would you do that to SOMEONE ELSE’S PROPERTY????
“WHY COULDN’T YOU JUST LEAVE IT THE GA- BLA- GR- FU- ALONE. You couldn’t resist it, could you?”
“No, I didn’t press any buttons. It just started like that.” He staree at his mother, while she foamed slowly at the mouth. A muscle tick appears on her upper lip.
Warning: Trigger Alert – Examples of bad parenting skills below:
“LIES ALL LIES! JUST STOP AND LISTEN. MY PHONE DID NOT UPDATE ITSELF. YOU PUSHED THE BUTTON WHEN IT ASKED DO YOU WANT TO UPDATE, YOU JUST COULDN’T CONTROL YOURSELF, COULD YOU? AAAAAAGGGGGGHHHHH! I’ve only had it for two days, I DON’T KNOW IF I CAN GET THE FACTORY SETTINGS BACK. I BOUGHT THIS OLD PHONE SO THAT IT WOULD BE COMPATIBLE WITH MY OLD LAPTOP. MY CHILD, THIS CAUSES ME TO HAVE TO THINK AND WORK HARDER AGAIN ON SOMETHING I COMPLETED YESTERDAY. I’ve been waiting to get an old/new phone for years. UUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!
My second head retreats into the back of my neck where it belongs and I am left breathing heavily. I should have programmed a passcode to ‘protect my data.'”
“You’re awake, right?
Get up.
Don’t miss the bus.
I’m not driving you to school today.”
“I’m awake,” he says.
My Child has been transformed from a zombie into a dressed, conscious human.
“Do I need to have new electronics next to your bed each morning to wake you up?”
No answer.
He walks out the front door and catches the bus.
“Mission Accomplished!” His mom does a fist pump and peels off her mother hag-nag gray sweat suit. Svelte, dressed in a black bodysuit, she walks to the kitchen to make a strawberry, blueberry, pineapple smoothy.
(Theme music from Mission Impossible plays in the background)
Images from The Show pan across the screen.
Segue into an illustration of the Spoof Book, Mission Improbable by J.J. Green
If you like ridiculous themes and silly banter, then this book is for you. I had forgotten about this book. I read it last summer.
I wonder how far I made it through the series. Book two Passage to Paradise seems familiar, but I can’t find it my Kindle Unlimited account. Maybe I read it during that period of time last summer, when I was not sleeping. Hmmm…
- I was able to erase and restore my phone to the factory settings, then reinstall the data from a cloud. I’m unbalanced by changes in my technology, so this was unsettling, but I think it’s finally correct. No permanent harm was done to the phone or the child.
- This child has been coming home late, so I’ve learned to text someone while I’m asking him about his whereabouts, so can remain calm. It seems to be working. Very slowly, but it still has the desired effect. Progress.
Amanuensis Sobriquet-Reverie 