I've Had It Up to Here with Teenagers

by Melinda Rainey Thompson

  I’m not one of those mamas who is willing to close the door and pretend the mess doesn’t exist. I can’t do it. I’ve tried. Our house is too small for that. Their messy rooms are on the ground floor, a can’t-miss visual treat for any guest who walks in. It embarrasses me to death. When a guest asks to use the bathroom, I run ahead to make sure hand towels and soap are available and clean and that the sinks are free of toothpaste worms. Most importantly, I check to see that the toilets are flushed. Yes, indeed. I really have to see if my teenage children have remembered to flush the pee and poop. What a treat that is for me. As I’ve said on numerous occasions, I am way overeducated for my current position and seriously underemployed.

  My teens know they aren’t supposed to leave the house until their beds are made, their clean clothes are put away, and their rooms are tidied. So they do all that—after a fashion. Let’s just say that they have low, low standards. Technically, they comply with my demands. The sheets, blankets, and comforters are pulled up to the tops of the beds—loosely speaking. Of course, huge lumps remain in the beds where they’ve pulled the covers over dirty clothes, a book or two, a pair of socks, or, one time, the family cat (no kidding) that was sleeping under the covers. They clear off the surfaces of their furniture by shoving everything in drawers or simply stacking debris like firewood in one big pile rather than the usual series of small, overflowing heaps of rubbish. They never actually go through those piles to sort, throw things away, or put things away properly. Never.

  “It’s clean enough, Mom! You should see my friends’ rooms! They’re so much worse than mine! I’ve never even seen _____’s bed, and _____ doesn’t even use hangers anymore. He just picks something to wear out of the pile in the bottom of the closet. It’s pretty cool, actually.”

  Most of all, I warn you like a first-timer at a horror movie: do not look under the bed of a teenager! I’m not worried about the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue you might find. I’m talking about the literal filth that hides there. It’s a lot like a trip to the city dump. Old toys. Stray socks. Dust bunnies the size of prairie dogs. Hair clips. Petrified Easter and Valentine’s candy. (It really is too old to eat. I tried that once in a chocolate emergency. Trust me on this.) Old test papers. Books. Ticket stubs. Golf and tennis balls. Loose change. (I usually find enough change to make me wonder who harvests the coins from fountains. Could I hire those people on a percentage basis to clean out under my kids’ beds? I could invest that change. Why are my kids so contemptuous of change? They never seem to use it. I’m not too proud to spend change. I have been known to count out ten dollars in change in the movie ticket line. It doesn’t make me very popular, but I get rid of a lot of nickels and dimes that way. Money is money. It all spends the same.) I have also found half-eaten apples, my favorite hairbrush that one of my teens borrowed and never returned, and some completely unidentifiable brown globs of … I have no idea what. Katrina mold? Mushrooms? A shrunken head? A giant hairball? A mummified body part? There’s no way to tell without a full crime-scene team to investigate.

  When I finally reach the end of my rope with the under-the-bed mess, I rake it all out using a broom, a baseball bat, or a golf club—whichever is handiest. I would never stick my bare arm under one of my kids’ beds. Anything could be hiding under those bedskirts. Bodies could be stashed there. After I rake the debris into a pile in the middle of the room, I bring two trash bags—one for actual garbage and the other for Goodwill. Then I hand those bags to the teenager who sleeps in that room and beat a hasty retreat to the sound of loud protests about the unfairness of that teen’s lot in life. It would take about ten minutes to clean out under the bed properly. Naturally, that teenager spends at least fifteen minutes complaining about the job before finally tackling it.

  Here’s the thing that baffles me most. When the parent/teen wrangling is over, the dust has settled, and the rooms are finally clean (to my standards) and once again capable of supporting human life as we know it, don’t you think that the teenagers who sleep there would do just about anything to avoid another you-have-to-clean-your-room battle by keeping them tidy? That seems like a logical reaction to me. I usually internalize life lessons fairly quickly, but I am sad to report that my teenagers have never learned the clean-room rule. It’s as if neat-and-tidy is an unnatural state for teenagers’ habitats. In just a few short days, the rooms usually return to their feral state. You can almost hear the jungle noises. Grownups need a machete, a teenage guide, and a tetanus booster to walk through the rooms.

  Maybe that’s the point, now that I think about it. Nothing says “Do Not Enter” to a grownup better than a big, smelly mess.

  THINGS I HAVE FOUND IN MY TEENAGERS’ ROOMS

  1.Year-old thank-you notes that were never mailed.

  2.Fast-food drink cup with mold growing on the lip.

  3.Long-lost pacifier in the air-conditioning vent.

  4.School forms that were never turned in, even though I stayed up until midnight filling them out.

  5.Candy stash of staggering proportions.

  6.Wads of cash stuffed into shoeboxes, as if my teens were secretly saving to pay off a future kidnapper.

  7.A drawerful of used-up ChapSticks and lip glosses with no useful value for humans.

  8.Hairy, unrecognizable former food products that looked like they belonged in a research facility.

  9.Enough plain old garbage to fill a Hefty lawn-and-garden bag.

  10.Clothing items outgrown at least three years ago.

  11.Chewed gum stuck to the bottom of the bed frame.

  12.Bloodied Band-Aids that were removed and slapped on to the nearest surface, the side of the shower stall, for example, rather than being thrown away in a sanitary manner.

  13.A Mother’s Day card my son was forced to write at school but never actually gave me.

  14.A pirate’s head cup containing a month’s supply of daily vitamins, which I assumed my son had swallowed before leaving the breakfast table.

  15.The expensive silk tie my son borrowed from my husband to wear to a dance and subsequently used like kitchen twine to secure his overflowing backpack.

  16.The credit card I allowed my teen to swipe to fill his car with gas, now serving as a handy-dandy, easy-to-steal bookmark.

  What’s for Dinner?

  Feeding hungry teenagers is similar to feeding wild animals at the zoo. I feel like I’m always throwing food over the fence in an attempt to fill up the animals. “Here you go!” I say, sliding a hot pizza onto the table. “No need to fight over it! There’s more where that came from!”

  Teenagers are bottomless pits. I don’t know where they put all the food they eat. They’re in great shape, of course. Just looking at a cupcake adds inches to my waistline. I can’t indulge my sweet tooth nearly as often as I used to (every day) without having to wear my fat jeans (sometimes, it’s worth it). At a bakery recently, I stared longingly at a glass case filled with mouth-watering treats. When the counter server asked what she could get me, I said without even thinking about it, “I’d like the top shelf, please.” I meant it. I could eat my way through a dozen petits fours without breaking a sweat or taking a water break. I can’t do that anymore without paying a control-top panties price. I hate control-top garments. When I wear them, I feel like a puppy that needs to tinkle every five minutes. Teenagers don’t have to face consequences like that. They burn calories as fast as they consume them. The world is an unfair place. I think I’ve mentioned this before.

  It is not unusual to hear my kids rustling around in the pantry less than an hour after I’ve finished cleaning up the kitchen and wiping down the counters for the two hundred and twenty-seventh time of the day. I always know it’s they because it sounds like bears foraging for honey after a long hibernation. They knock boxes over, shove canned goods out of the way, crinkle bags, and generally hunt-and-gather in search of the perfect sugar-laden, carbo-loading snack food. “They can’t possibly be hungry again this soon!” I always say, no matter how
many times they do it. Keeping teenagers’ bellies full is like feeding premature babies in the neonatal intensive care unit. Those babies expect some food to be thrown down their throats every two hours or so, or somebody is going to hear about it.

  It is not uncommon for me to still be in the process of cleaning up the kitchen when one of my kids wanders back in for a snack. “You’ve got to be kidding me!” I have been known to shout while waving my sponge. “Out, out, out! The kitchen is closed for a few hours! Check back later!”

  Many, many nights, I have been just about to drift off to sleep only to hear one of the wild-boar-like beasts foraging through the refrigerator or pantry with the desperation of a diabetic trying to ward off a sugar low.

  “It’s midnight! What could you possibly need now?” I yell downstairs.

  “I’m having a bowl of cereal, Mom! You don’t have to do anything!” one of my teenagers yells back, clearly affronted.

  “Why did you wait until now? It’s too late to eat! Can’t you wait until morning?” I ask.

  “Well, excuse me for being hungry, Mom!” replies the outraged teen. “I can’t sleep if I’m hungry!”

  They can’t help it, of course. They really can’t. Teenagers are hungry all the time. They are in constant motion. Think about it. Almost every activity they participate in involves exercise of some type. They play all kinds of sports like football, basketball, and baseball. They swim and hike and run for the fun of it. Remember those days? They walk everywhere like wandering bands of nomads. Cheerleading practices look like one long aerobic workout to me. Also, teenagers grow at shocking rates. Khakis that fit at Christmas are too short by Valentine’s Day. They actually need all those calories and all that sleep. They’re building muscles and brains. I wonder: how many Little Debbies does it take to make a brain cell? On second thought, I do not want to know the answer. No good will come from research into that foodlike product.

  I’m sad to report that I continue to grow at an astounding rate, too. Apparently, my width hasn’t quite caught up with my height. I am so jealous of the fact that teenagers can eat anything they want to without getting fat that I can hardly stand it. I used to be able to do that, too. It sure was fun while it lasted.

  When I went out to lunch with my teenagers recently, I ordered a salad with low-calorie dressing and an unsweetened iced tea because of the previously mentioned weight/height discrepancy. (This is not my fault, since I am eating the same things I always have. I do not know what the problem is.) I despise unsweetened iced tea as only a Southern woman who thinks of sugared iced tea as a birthright can hate it. Drinking unsweetened tea puts me in a bad mood. I feel strongly that drinking tea without real sugar is, frankly, beneath me. I consider it a serious deprivation for a woman who has written an entire chapter on sweet tea (see book #1, SWAG: Southern Women Aging Gracefully). You don’t want to get between a Southern woman and her iced tea, a Brit and her cuppa, or anyone from the Pacific Rim and a bowl of rice. Take away people’s edible touchstones and they lose their bearings and begin to wonder about the meaning of life. Some foods are more than the sum total of their nutritional value. Some foods are culturally iconic.

  After I placed my order, one of my kids ordered a medium pizza for his own personal consumption. He mulled over the sides for a few seconds before finally deciding on French fries. With cheese.

  I almost gagged. “You are the poster child for poor eating habits today, son,” I said.

  “Fine,” he responded with a long-suffering sigh. “Could you add a salad to that, please?” he asked the waitress, glancing pointedly at me. “And a glass of milk”—his pièce de résistance. “You happy now?” he asked me.

  “Not particularly,” I said. “Why didn’t you order the onion rings? You know they make the best onion rings in the city.”

  “I didn’t order onion rings because I don’t like them. You’re the one who likes onion rings, Mom. You just want me to order them so you can eat some. I’m not here to do your dirty work for you. You’re a big girl. Order what you want,” he said.

  I scowled at him over the top of my reading glasses. The boy had me pegged.

  “You have a lot to learn before you get married, son,” I told him.

  “What has that got to do with anything?” he asked, perplexed.

  “It’s just an observation,” I responded.

  When our pediatrician (God bless Dr. Linda Stone, who has kept me from quitting my day job on several occasions) asked about my kids’ diets at one of their checkups, I told her the truth. If you look at what they eat on a single day, the state of Alabama might be tempted to remove our kids from our happy home. But if you look at their diets over a week’s time, they’re perfectly fine. I manage to slide plenty of fruits and vegetables in there. I am ashamed sometimes when I see all the prepackaged snacks and processed foods I dole out in addition to regular meals, however. Buying organic meat and milk isn’t going to make up for all that, I know. I should be getting some kickbacks from Little Debbie. I’ve kept that wench in business for years.

  It seems like every time I get in the checkout line with soda, Doritos, and Oreos, I’m behind a health nut. It is usually a super-thin woman (wearing workout clothes) who has a six-pack of bottled vitamin water, a head of cabbage, a carton of plain yogurt, and a pint of fat-free milk in her environmentally friendly, reusable bag. (How could I possibly use those? I’d need fifty at least!) Waves of disapproval emanate from her perfectly toned body when she glances at my groceries. I usually shrug off the guilt and try to hide the Oreos under my bag of prewashed lettuce.

  Every month, my grocery bill runs neck and neck with my mortgage payment. Grocery shopping is one of the chores I despise most. I always end up with more than I meant to purchase, and I always manage to come home without the one item I went to the store to buy in the first place.

  Also, grocery shopping on the scale necessary to feed teenagers hurts my back. Serious heavy lifting is involved. Although some grocery stores have bag boys, those people don’t follow me home and unload my car. They’re not allowed to. I asked. In addition, grocery shopping is often just plain embarrassing. I look like the little old lady in the shoe, who had so many children she didn’t know what to do. In all honesty, I find that nursery rhyme a little too close to the truth to be amusing.

  These days, here’s how I shop: I cram groceries into my buggy until I can’t wedge in another can of tuna. When I reach that point, regardless of where I am on my list, I consider it a sign from God and my checking account that it is time to go home. As you can imagine, by the time I round the last aisle, I am huffing and puffing because my buggy is heavy and hard to steer. It is filled to the brim with canned goods, fresh produce, cleaning products, cat food, paper goods, and five or six gallons of milk. When my kids were little, I never went to the grocery store without buying diapers. The rule was: get whatever is on the list, then add diapers. Now, it’s milk. Teenagers drink a lot of milk. All those gallons make for a heavy grocery cart.

  I have learned to lean forward over my arms and the top basket (where my children used to ride when they were small) and use my weight to drive the cart forward with my legs. You’ve seen football players do this in practice when they push those sleds across the field. It’s especially hard to turn corners. A full grocery cart doesn’t corner well at all. They should come with rearview mirrors and horns (the ones on clown cars would work well) to help navigate the aisles. Also, grocery aisles need passing lanes. I don’t know why no one has ever thought of that before. It’s hard to steer around the thoughtless shoppers who park their carts in the middle of the aisle while they compare the prices on every olive grown in Tuscany.

  Sometimes, I get my feelings hurt at the grocery store. Perfect strangers comment on the contents of my basket all the time. I do not understand this. I do not editorialize about other people’s grocery carts. I do not question why they need eight cans of shaving cream or twenty-seven jars of maraschino cherries. I’m curious about that
, sure, but I have nice manners, and I know it is impolite to ask. It is not any of my business.

  “Jeez, lady! How many people are you cooking for?” is a common dig. It’s rude. It’s not like I do this for fun, you know.

  No matter how anonymous I would prefer to remain (sweatpants, no makeup, dark sunglasses), the bag boy greets me loudly by name when I enter. “Where you been all week?” Travis shouts. (Of course, I know his name. I told you I’m a nice person.) “I haven’t seen you in three whole days!” he says. “That’s some kind of record for you, isn’t it?” It’s the same joke every time. Let’s just say I’m a good customer and leave it at that.

  When I approach the checkout lanes, they often call for reinforcements. I swear I heard a cashier yell, “Incoming!” one time. Over the loudspeaker, I hear, “I need an extra cart on Lane 4, and some bagging help. Mrs. Thompson’s here!” Sure, tell the whole store about my private buggy business, I think as I hunch over my cart in shame.

  The fun doesn’t end at the checkout. Things don’t get one bit easier when I take my buggy out to the parking lot. It’s only one step beyond the days of toting a skin bag and dashing home to the cave before being brought down by a bear. Unless you’ve personally experienced this, you can’t imagine how hard it is to control a grocery cart when it’s fully loaded with enough Gatorade and chips to keep a herd of teenagers happy for a week. Grocery carts are not engineered well at all. There’s no space-age technology involved. To update grocery carts, I think we need to get whoever designed the nifty suitcases that spin and whirl on wheels so you can drag them around the airport with one hand. That would really help me out. Nothing has changed in grocery cart technology for a few world wars. At least one wheel is always cross-eyed and determined to go in a different direction from the rest, which requires strenuous manhandling—not one of my talents.