Every teenager at some point ponders the question, “Just how stupid ARE my parents?” The query is usually related to some activity that the teen has in mind that they’re fairly clear the folks wouldn’t approve of but which they really (like, REALLY) want to do anyway. So assessing the stupidity quotient of mom and dad is critical to the process.
Some close friends have finally achieved their dream
of travel now that their last kid is in college. Their 19-year-old daughter,
however, is prone to come home for the weekend when mom and dad are out of town
and have a few close friends in for what is advertised as an intimate soirée. But somehow, a party always seems to take
place instead. Sometimes several.
The rule, of course, is: absolutely NO parties. But what defines “party,” really? Number of people? Noise level?
Squad cars? It’s such a nebulous
term.
Considering the number of times she’s been caught
out (a neighbor actually called her parents on their Black Sea cruise at 3 a.m.
to report that the daughter’s exceedingly inebriated guests were at that very
moment anointing his dahlias with bodily fluids), you think she’d get the idea
that having clandestine social gatherings was more problematical than she
realized.
Before my friends left on their latest ten day trip,
they hired an elderly relative’s former caretaker to come stay at the house at
night while they were gone. No way is their
daughter going to party with the caretaker there. Daughter mentions that since
finals are approaching, she might come into town to have a weekend of quiet
studying away from the noise of her high-density roommate venue. Grades, she reminds her folks, are her utmost
priority.
Olof and I laughed out loud when we heard this. But the parents had faith. This time they had it covered.
Imagine the parents’ dismay when they arrived home
and knew fairly quickly their offspring had had a party in their absence. Daughter was equally dismayed that they’d
found out. She’d been so careful! She’d made everyone stay inside (those double
pane windows are marvelous noise insulators).
She’d had most of the people stay over so there wasn’t a lot of 2 a.m. departing
guest noise waking up the neighbors.
Absolutely no dahlias were harmed.
She’d even removed every bit of trash from the trash cans and buried,
er, relocated it elsewhere. How could
this have happened?
Well, here’s a short list:
(1) The caretaker your parents paid to stay at the
house? She came by the next morning to
return part of her payment saying she couldn’t take money for the three weekend
days when you maintained you were preparing for a Zen meditation final which,
it goes without saying, required being completely alone.
(2) The cheapest place to shop for booze may be your
parents’ Costco-stocked garage but this time they actually counted the stash before
they left. They had to admit after the
fact that they admired your friends’ taste in vodka.
(3) Making
the beds was a thoughtful touch. Washing
the sheets might have been a more thoughtful touch. Recognizing that Mom is a precision bed maker
who does hospital corners and can spot a bed not made by her from thirty yards,
priceless.
(4) Sanitizing the crime scene by disposing of
incriminating evidence in both the big black trash can and the blue recycle bin
might have seemed like a brilliant idea but leaving them echo-ingly empty was
equivalent to installing a neon sign screaming “PART-EE!” If you learn nothing else in your college
career, it’s that subterfuge is all in the details.
(5) The scorched earth policy applied to the trash should
have used on the kitchen instead.
Cleaning lady had been there Thursday.
Parents home Sunday night.
Pushing all those Dorito crumbs behind the counter appliances hoping
they’d go unnoticed until next Thursday was a loser from the get-go. Dad, a world-class neatnik, has infrared
vision for crumbs. Alas for you, so do
ants.
(6) While
it’s commendable that you have friends from all walks of life, having some of
the people from those walks walking around to the back door of an allegedly
unoccupied house is bound to attract attention from the neighbors. Yes, it’s profiling. And yes, we know it’s not fair.
(7) It was,
like, totally savvy of you not to post any pictures of this party on your
Facebook page. But your friends posted
them on theirs. And tagged YOU. And yes, Mom promised that if you friended
her she wouldn’t rag on you for anything she saw there. But some of those pictures might have been a
little TMI, especially those lewdly creative uses of Dad’s treasured set of custom
cooking utensils. Please say you washed
them afterwards.
Next trip for parents: two weeks from now. Daughter will be home for the summer. Caretaker has been told she is not to leave
the premises at night no matter what excuses are tendered or how much money
daughter offers her.
Olof and I already have our money on the kid.
No comments:
Post a Comment