I don’t like coming home from work anymore.

Used to be after a long day and horrific commute, I’d arrive home, and home was the reason to have gone through the miserable soul-killing day. I’d drive up to my sweet lit up house, walk in the door and my son would cry out joyously, “Mommy’s home!” He would trip all over himself racing to me from the den, shining face filled with joy and aching for the chance to throw his arms around me and welcome me back. The dogs would leap up and down around us, throwing themselves against me and then diving onto the floor slobbering and licking and crying with sheer happiness. It was, (I thought privately), an absolutely appropriate greeting for the mother. Giver of life, filler of dog bowls.

Things have calmed down just a tad in the past few years. For example, no one really bothers to turn on the porch light for me anymore. If I arrive home after dark, I stumble my way up the steps grasping my key and scratching it first all over the paint on the door and eventually into the lock. Once in, I can sometimes catch a dog looking up for a moment, and then bored out of his mind, dropping back to sleep.

I put down my stuff and walk into the den. Through the sliding glass door I see our housekeeper in the back yard, no doubt finishing up the same cell phone call I left her on this morning. My son lies on the couch, ruling the universe with a plastic controller and two double-A batteries. I stroke his head.

“Hi honey. How was your day?”
He doesn’t look up.
“The printer doesn’t work so I can’t finish my homework.”
“I can fix that. Are you sure you had paper in the …”
“When I turn on my shower it pours water all over the bathroom.”
“Did you close the shower door?”
No answer.
“Did you mop it up?”
No answer.
And then because I just can’t help myself…
“Did you actually take a shower?”
Silence. I start upstairs to look at the damage, when I hear:

“I have to wear orange tomorrow.” I stop.
“All orange or just some orange?
The question clearly annoys him. I can tell because he shoots his friend August. As August drops little “F” bombs through the X-Box headset, there is a low moan from the other dog who I see for the first time has an eye that is crusty and red and dripping some kind of horrible goo.
“Hey,” I say, “did anyone notice that Spike’s eye is…”
“The basketball hoop fell into the garage light and there is glass all over the driveway.”
“Did you step in it?”
He looks at me like I’m an idiot.
“…And someone from the city called. You have to pay two hundred and fifty dollars if your sprinklers don’t stop spraying the sidewalk by tomorrow.”
“Who asked them to monitor the sprinklers? And how do these people…”
“I have a stomach ache.”
“Since when?”
“I don’t know.
“Does it feel like gas or cramps?”
“I don’t know.”

The housekeeper enters from the back yard.
“He don’t want to eat yet.”
“Well,” I say, “It’s almost 8:30, maybe you should have…”
My son has at last found a reason to turn his head slightly toward me.
“I’m hungry now.”
“I thought you had a stomach ache.”
“I’m hungry now.
I turn to the housekeeper. “He’s hungry now.”
“I gotta go.”
“Right. Of course. I’ll feed him.”
“Good.”
The housekeeper picks up her bag.
“Thank you.” I say.
“You’re welcome,” she replies, getting almost totally out the door, “Don’t use the toilet in your room.”
“Why not?”
She laughs. “I gotta go.”

Rae.

Having just returned from a heartbreaking vacation in Africa with my teen over Christmas, I find for the first time in seven years that his summer vacation and my work vacation will have a week in common.  I was thrilled.  A week together during summer?  I must do this right.  Yes, I know I will need to take a friend for him and that the theme of the week will have to be ‘teenager friendly,”  yet I was excited, and I went onto the internet to look at the possibilities.

Disney.  Amusement Parks.  Extreme Hiking.   Atlantis…  No.   There had to be something better.  I went upstairs and took a shower.  While standing there under the hot water, I closed my eyes and began to imagine vacations that I thought would be truly valuable for both of us.  I offer to you;

“REAL LIFE” CAMP:  No reservations necessary.  One shows up and must actually work one’s way up for the right to have a room at night.  After a few nights of sleeping outside, the teen is inspired to actually find a way to earn a room and upon achieving it, enters to find there is no furniture, no t.v., and no heat or water until that too is warranted.  All the other guests are rude and a freeway runs through the center of the property.

LEARN HOW TO LISTEN” BEACH:  A beautiful sandy shore with seemingly fantastic waves.  As the afternoon goes on, there is a constant undertow, pulling the teens farther and farther out into the ocean.   As the teens call out for help, trying desperately to communicate to their parents, we stand on the sand, occasionally lifting a hand to cup our ear and yell …. “Wha?”  ”I dint hear you.”  and “What’s for dinner?”

“D STUDENT” ADVENTURE LAND: Dozens of opportunities for your disappointing teen to experience where his life is headed.  ”Cooking with Lard and Petroleum,” Leaf Blowing for Beginners”  and “Car Wash Water Park”, are popular attractions , so make your plans ASAP!  New this year… the Paper Hat Museum.

TEEN PARENT CRUISE:  Welcome aboard the newest member of our fleet.  A two week cruise where teens come in couples and are issued their very own newborn upon boarding.  Parents are not allowed to help out or babysit.   Don’t worry about losing your teen at all the ports of call!  We have yet to see any one of them actually leave the boat.  Cabins are equipped with paper thin walls, bad plumbing, and while one is allowed to charge diapers and baby food at the on-board market, each room is hounded on an hourly basis with calls from angry creditors.  For a nominal fee, babies are guaranteed to have colic.  Teens are barred from upper decks where parents can sit in the sun, have a cocktail and laugh their asses off watching their teens on hidden cameras.

Rae

My girlfriend calls her daughter’s cell phone.  She’s startled when it rings on the counter right next to her. Even more startled when she looks down at it and sees herself I.D.’d as “The Bitch.”

If I took a razor to him while he was sleeping, do you think he’d notice?

We all know that getting a teenager to actually converse with you is the holy grail of parenting.  So imagine my delight when a couple weeks ago I tucked my kid in, started out of his room and heard:

“Guess what happened today?”

My pulse quickened.  My mind lit up with possible options.  Was he in trouble?  Seeking advice?  Trying to re-establish contact??  I turned slowly so as not to scare him off.

“What’s that, honey?”

Well, it was a story about P.E. class.  Not a very good one, but I was glad to hear it.  Then, there was a follow-up story. And a small discussion.  And an anecdote.  At eleven-thirty he finally went to bed, but hey, in my mind it was worth it.  We’d had a talk.  He was reaching out.  I was succeeding big-time as a parent.

The next day although tired, I quickly arranged a lunch with several friends who also had a teenagers.  As hard as it was, I managed to sit there for a full eleven minutes before dropping my bombshell.  ”Anyway… Danny and I were talking last night, and…”   I heard a small gasp on my left.  Food literally fell from the mouth of the woman sitting across from me.  This was turning out better than I’d even imagined.  My friend Diane squinted her eyes and leaned forward.  ”He speaks to you?”  ”Oh yes,” I replied with a look that said,  ”Doesn’t your son speak to you?”   I told them the P.E. story.  They listened in what could only be described as awed silence.  Then after I’d milked that as long as I could, I told them the anecdote.  There were questions.  All of them pleading for some kind of information on the lives of their own kids.  ”Did Danny happen to mention what they eat for lunch?”  ”Did he say anything about Matthew’s grades?  ”Does Jeffrey ever talk about me?”

That night I went in to Danny’s room to say goodnight.  He was sitting up in bed listening to music and when I walked in, he took his earphones out.  I’m going to say this again.  He-took-his-earphones-out.  He looked up at me and once again, words came from his mouth.  ”Want to hear something funny?”   Oh my God, I thought.  I’m the real deal.  He is seeking me out.  Well, can I tell you, we talked ’til midnight.  He told me an endless mind-numbing story about something that had happened on X-Box.  Then he told me the P.E. story again.  Every time I considered putting a stop to it and making him go to sleep, I knew that I’d regret it.  We had a dialogue going… a dull and repetitive one, but a dialogue nonetheless.  I didn’t want to do anything to spoil that.

I got up at my usual 5:30 a.m. and women I barely knew began calling me to hear the P.E. story and the anecdote.  I threw in a few highlights from the new incomprehensible X-Box thing and before I knew it, I was receiving a call from the head of the Middle School Parent Association.  Would I consider speaking at the next meeting?  Well of course I would.  It would be so selfish to keep this kind of  skill and insight to oneself.

Friday night.  I sat down with a pad of paper.   How could I best impart my newfound child-raising expertise to these people who were begging for my help?  I pictured myself standing at the lectern, looking out into a sea of needy parents. Giving them hope that they too could break down the unnecessary barrier between themselves and their teen.  Giving them hope that they could be like me. “These are good lines,” I thought.  I started making my notes.  ”Unnecessary barrier.”  ”Be like me.”

Danny was on the computer and since it was the weekend, he planned to stay up late.  Still, I thought that before I went to sleep, I should give him a shot at our little night time chat.

“Honey?”

“Mm.”

“I’m going to bed.”

“Mm-hm.”

“Did you want to talk?”

“What?”

“You know.  How we’ve been kind of talking every night?”

“Oh, yah.”  He smiled up at me.  ”I just didn’t want to go to bed.”

We are in a jeep, driving across the Serengeti with our assigned safari partners, the Gurtz family.  Not only do they have an alluring and scantily clad 15 year old daughter (a fact not lost on my son) but also an energetic ten year old boy who’s new hobby is shaking up cans of Coke and spraying them all over the inside of the vehicle.

Outside there is an ostrich mommy communing with her chicks, and I’d like to be taking her picture but at this point it seems far more prudent to cram my camera up under my shirt ’til the kid runs out of soda.   I shoot a savage look at his mother.  When she looks back, I chuckle and shake my head in that way (we moms) always use to say “Gosh, he’s just adorable.

Right behind her is my son who, sitting next to the perpetually bouncing babe seems to be happy for the first time in ohhh, about seventy five weeks.  My heart begins to lift.  Maybe he’s only happy because he’s sitting next to a sexy bra-less 15 year old, but I don’t care.  He is happy IN AFRICA. Maybe the vixen has slipped him some kind of mind altering drug.  I don’t care.  He is happy IN AFRICA and so he is enjoying the trip and it was my idea and I am right and that is all that matters.   I begin to speak to Mrs. Gurtz who turns out to be fun and honestly self-deprecating.  Of her own accord, she gives me permission to physically abuse her son if I think he needs it.  I laugh but she says she’s serious. She must know what she’s doing.  She’s a psychologist.

I pull my camera out from my now dry and sugar encrusted t-shirt and begin to take pictures of grazing zebras framed by thousands of flamingos.  It is a stunning sight.  I look over and risk smiling at Danny, but when he catches my eye, an odd thing happens. His face turns from pleased to annoyed.  ”No,” I think, “this must be my imagination.  We’ve already established, he’s really happy IN AFRICA.”  I shake it off and smack the Gurtz kid on the side of his head .  Life is good.

That night, all the kids in our group migrate to a table of their own.   As I pretend to eat some kind of thick greenish-black stew, I glance over at Danny.  He doesn’t see me.  He is laughing.  He is engaged and smiling.   It’s been eight, maybe eight and a half hours since he’s groaned or whined or stared at me with sheer loathing.

After dinner, (since there’s not much to do besides wander around and become prey to some ravenous animal,)  we find our (yes, armed) chaperone and walk to the room.  I know I should just shut up. I am aware that if I push my son and ask if he’s having fun it could easily ruin what seems to have been a pleasant day … and yet…

I can’t help it.  I NEED this.  I NEED him to tell me that the two thousand hours of work I’ve done to get us here has been worth it.  That he’s finding new friends,  seeing awe inspiring sights, opening his mind to other cultures and customs.  I open my stupid mouth…

“So, it seems like you had a good day.”

Long pause.

“What?”

“I mean, you looked like you were having fun.”

His eyes become slits.  ”When?”

“Uh, today.  On the safari… (then, weakly) and, you know, at — dinner?”

“Huh.”  And he turns away.

I don’t ask again.  It’s too painful.   Day after day for two weeks I watch him dance with Masaii Warriors, flirt with girls, swim in pools surrounded by warthogs and sail in hot air balloons over charging rhinos, only to return to camp every night, stricken and giving me the silent treatment.  I have robbed him of his Christmas vacation.  Every night he becomes more defeated, crying out,  ”How many more days do we have to beeee heeere?”   Every morning he pulls himself exhausted from his bed of anguish.  Out on safari he puts on a good show, but clearly, he’s miserable.  I resign myself to believing that someday he’ll look back on this trip and maybe appreciate the effort.

Months later I’m sitting in my office writing this, and he comes up behind me and starts reading over my shoulder.

“I need an ending,” I tell him.

“I think the ending is good,” he says.

“What ending?”

“Where I refuse to let you think that I’m having a good time.”

He turns and walks out.

“Wait,” I yell,  ”Where you…What?  You refuse to…. That was on PURPOSE?”

From the hallway: “Ya, duh.”

Kill me,

Rae.

From Los Angeles, the flights to Africa  (3 of them in total) take very close to 24 hours.  When your teenager asks you how long it will take to get to Africa, you say: “Hey, do you want pizza tonight?”  If an hour or so later, they actually remember to ask again… you say, “I spoke to your math teacher today.”  and so on.  Don’t worry,  there is no way in hell any of them will ever, ever pick up anything that resembles an atlas and look at the actual distance.  Distract them.  Keep it to yourself.  The closest you should ever get to divulging the actual length of time is when you suggest they download about 14 to 17  full length feature films on their ipod for the trip there and back.

Only when the first plane has completely lifted off the ground and they bring up the subject again, can you laugh lightly and say, “Oh, I imagine it will take the day!”  At the end of the second flight (which should leave you in London or Amsterdam) they will be mad.  It’s disorienting for them.  They have not gotten a text in about fifteen hours, and no one has referred to them as ‘Dude.’  No amount of candy or P.C. magazines will bring them around.  Prepare for it.  Remain tirelessly cheerful.  Piss them off even more.  They’ll stop talking to you and give up.  Go to sleep.  You’re going to need your strength.

If your destination is Eastern Africa, the last leg of the trip will normally take you to Nairobi.  It’s there that you meet the rest of the people in your tour group, all of whom still have on their party manners.  No way to tell who anyone actually is yet.  The 18 or so of us in the group took a puddle jumper to Tarangire, jumped into our assigned jeeps with the other families, and began our first safari.

My son had been silent for  hours.  His final statement in Amsterdam, (“Tulips are fucked”) had been our last serious communication.  Now suddenly, here in the jeep, he was looking around.  He was making clever observations.  He was SMILING.  I was beside myself with joy.  I knew I’d made the right decision bringing him here.  I knew once we got to Africa he would come around.

I started to introduce myself to the family we were teaming up with, and as I did so, followed my son’s radiant smile across the jeep to… a fifteen year old, scantily clad, goddess.   She had smashed  herself against the back wall of the vehicle and was holding her bejeweled fingers up over her face.  She shook her beautifully coiffed head of hair back and forth, because what she had seen was too impossible for her to comprehend.  It was a bug.  ”My God it’s moving!” she shrieked, and then clearly outraged that this could be happening in the middle of Africa,  ”AND THERE’S ANOTHER ONE!!!!”

My son was intoxicated.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Five years ago, I decided I wanted to go on safari in Africa.  I wanted to see it before it was gone. I wanted to drive in a jeep, wind blowing through my hair, passing wildebeest and waving to giraffes.   My son thought it was a fantastic idea. But he was eight. At eight, Africa is cool.   At thirteen, Africa is two solid weeks of watching ‘dumb-ass animals stand around.’  I decided we’d better go soon.

Winter break, 2009, I went for it. I paid out vast amounts of money to tour companies and airlines and filled out papers for visas and passports. I made arrangements for shots  and malaria pills. I bought electric adaptors. Cameras with extra batteries. Pants that zip off into shorts. First aid, raincoats, ‘gators,’ Tamiflu just in case… It is a BIG job packing for this trip. Especially because I am accustomed to thinking, ‘well if I don’t pack it, I’ll buy it there.’ There is no ‘buy it there.’ It’s freaking Africa. There is no Target.  No CVS. There is (at best) a counter at a small airport that sells eighty year old Alka-Seltzer and santitary napkins  the size of a twin bed.

I told my son the arrangements were final. I told him all the details and he listened to me much in the same way he usually does. Which is to say, not at all. I know this because about a week before the trip he asked,
“When did you say we’re leaving?”
“The day you get out of school.”
“And when do we get back?”
“The day before school starts.”

He turned to me, furious.   “So, I get NO vacation.”

Thirty thousand dollars. Fourteen days. Business class tickets. Lions. Leopards. Hot air balloons. Tented camps.  And he doesn’t see it as a vacation.  One would think this might make me a tad upset  but folks, this is not my first rodeo.

“No,” I responded. “You get no vacation at all.”

He avoided all the preparations. He showed no interest whatsoever in the packing of the supplies. He was in complete denial.  When friends would try and engage him, (“Wow! I heard you’re going to Africa!”) he’d turn and stare bleeding holes through my head,  literally willing me to stop the senseless cruelty of all this.  ”Yes,” he’d say very slowly as though still trying to believe it himself.  ”Yes we are.”  A long pause, still unblinking.  ”And we just can’t wait.”

As the departure date got closer and closer, and he could no longer tune out the growing stacks of khaki clothing, he became hysterical at the concept that I was going to make him go through with this.

I… (and this is how I eventually won the war)… totally ignored him. For once, I took a page out of my parents book and just made up my mind that he had no say in anything.  I turned and floated out of the room as he screamed… “Where are we staying? Mom? Mom? Please answer me.  They have internet there, right?”

Well, no.  Where we were going, they politely suggest you might want to bring your own toilet paper…

TO BE CONTINUED…

I was very proud of myself when I bought my house. Single woman. Nice house. Way to go, huh?

I furnished it with things that were comfortable and fun. I had a kid. Got a couple dogs. Hired a housekeeper. Things went well for several years. Everybody got along.

Now it seems, I’m going to have to leave.  There’s no room for me here anymore. Certainly not in the den where my voice is just an unwanted interruption to my son’s video  games and homework – (in that order).    Not in the kitchen which is maintained by the housekeeper and jealously guarded by the dogs who, by the way,  have recently had a  change of heart and now like the housekeeper MUCH better than they like me.  (Note to self: tell the housekeeper I will feed the dogs from now on. )

The closet space has all been used up by toys and basketball shoes and leashes. The backyard contains trampolines, chewy toys, footballs, bicycles, and tents. At times I try to  sleep in the area that used to be my room, but this depends on whether or not the dogs need the bed.  The living room is large, but at the present time is occupied by all the rugs from the rest of the  house that we’ve had to roll up so nobody (and you know who you are)  chews them.

My son will pull out his own fingernails rather than throw away an old PC or X-Box magazine. He has every video game ever developed and every stupid plastic party favor ever bestowed on him. He has twenty seven hundred colored pencils and a color printer.  Clothes that fit him, clothes that don’t fit him and clothes that will fit him. Boxes of old schoolwork.  Vitamins, Uggs, air rifles, board games.  Portable DVD players, Guitar Hero guitars and a 75 Sunkist orange-soda can pyramid.   I have a tube of mascara and the car key.

It’s not the disorganization so much as the fact that it’s not my house anymore.  When I hired our housekeeper, I decided to empower her. Let her know that she was to do what she thought was best. So she does. This, for some reason includes a need to write on everything I own. Like we couldn’t possibly remember that in the plastic pitcher in the refrigerator, we keep water. No. She’s decided to write the word “WATER” on it in huge letters. And then, I guess for those who can’t read, draw little black drops of water around the word “water.”

In the box in the cabinet where we keep old batteries for recycling, the word “Badereez” has appeared… Once again, accompanied by some kind of drawing that appears to be…. lightning bolts?? I don’t know. I think it’s lightning bolts. In my opinion, not really the best icon for dead ‘badereez,” but whatever.

She has also decided that my house is safer than hers (and yes, this is true), so she hides packages of money and papers everywhere. In my bread drawer there are birth certificates. Copies of green cards in the linen closet. Photographs are tucked away lovingly in what appears to be random CD cases. You thought you’d play some Lyle Lovett? Not so fast. This case contains little Jorge’s first day of school. When I try to throw out old rugs or appliances, she gasps, alarmed that something so precious might be discarded and says, “No, no. I will take.” Then she takes it… and  puts it in my garage.  The garage (along with everything I’ve ever tried to throw out) is also where we store her suitcases and her son’s skateboards. And some books that my girlfriend doesn’t have room for. And the gardeners tools. And someone’s couch. I can’t remember who.

Brand new enormous size 11 big man leather dress shoes … triple tied.