"Drew, let's go! We're gonna be late." That boy spends more time in the bathroom than anyone I know. Always primping and flexing and popping zits in the mirror. You'd think he'd eventually get tired of looking at himself. Too bad there isn't a profession out there where a person could get paid to stare at himself in the mirror all day. "Drew, come on! What's taking you so long?" I said again, hoping to get some sort of response from my 17-year-old son.
"A work of art is a time-consuming process," he yells from somewhere upstairs.
"Then you should get up earlier. Or be prepared to walk to school." I mumbled that last part under my breath. I knew it would only pick a fight. I need to work harder at holding my tongue. That's what I always tell the boy anyway. I am really losing my patience with this kid. And it's making me a horrible parent.
I wonder how many other people notice.
"Why don't you just leave? I can get myself to school," he replies.
Uh-huh, sure you can. "Drew, we've talked about this a dozen times. You are NOT to drive that car without insurance."
"What's the big deal?" he yells from upstairs. "I'll be really careful. Nothing will happen. I promise."
"I believe you to be intelligent and to have many talents, but I question your ability to accurately predict the future." I've learned that kissing his butt and stroking his ego are the best ways to get him to fight fairly.
"But Mom, no one's gonna know. I promise." Now he's just whining.
"If you're going to start promising things, you should stick with the things you actually have control over. Being on the road, in a parking lot, with other people and vehicles is not an environment you can control."
Surprisingly, no witty retort with attitude. It must be my lucky day.
"Is this conversation keeping you from getting ready?" That was subtle, right?
"YES!" Well, that's what I get for trying to talk to the boy before he's had breakfast.
"Then the conversation is over. You have two minutes. After that, you're on your own." I wasn't all that worried about him driving his car uninsured. I removed the battery last weekend after I saw that the mileage miraculously jumped 78 miles over night when no one in our household had driven it.
I keep telling myself that I need to avoid doing things for Drew, but that's exactly what I was doing. He was upstairs doing God-knows-what, putting more effort into arguing with me than getting ready for school. And I was in the kitchen grabbing him breakfast-to-go and stacking his books so that he could easily grab them as he was passing through. Anything to avoid an outburst. That was my constant goal. Then of course, there is the prayer I am constantly saying in my head.
Finally, with no time to spare, he comes bounding down the stairs dressed in black jeans with strategically located holes and a black T-shirt that says, "You'll do." His brown, wavy hair is perfectly messed up. His shoes are untied. His belt, which is obviously not there to hold up his pants, is long enough to hit his knees. And everyone was going to see the flash of orange plaid that was his boxers as they peaked out above the jeans that weren't pulled up to his waist.
"Drew, is that shirt appropriate for school?" I had to start somewhere. I picked the slogan on the T-shirt.
"It has sleeves, no holes or rips, and doesn't reference alcohol, drugs, violence, or sex. What's your problem with it?"
"I think it's a little suggestive. Don't you?"
"Yeah right, whatever." The teenager's answer to everything.
I didn't really have time for this argument. If the school deemed it inappropriate, they'd deal with it...probably with a large strip of duct tape and a phone call to me at work.
And yes, shame on me for not addressing the problem directly. But I didn't want to get into a shouting match so early in the morning. So, I handed him is books and the breakfast burrito I had just heated up in the microwave, the latter of which he dropped into the wastebasket on the way out of the house, and we were on our way.
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