Saturday, April 25, 2009

Another rainy weekend

I'm not a happy camper. So be warned, I'm going to bitch here for a bit.

Being Saturday, I thought it might be safe to catch up on some sleep - what a fool I am ! The kids both had over night guests last night (as usual) and I woke this morning to a silent, rather apocalyptic looking house. It was noon and eventually, I found a note from Heather ( my more "responsible" child - Haha, that's a joke.) buried under all the debris on the kitchen table. It explained that she and her friends had gone to the park; if I needed her, I could call Hailey's cell #. Also, that she had no idea where Jake, Quentin, and Chrissy had disappeared to, but if I needed him, to try calling Q's cell #. At the bottom of the note, she had drawn a large circle and placed my cell phone inside of it. To the left, she drew an arrow and she scribbled, "needs 2 b charged." As I walked back upstairs to plug my cell phone into the charger by my bedside, I thought to myself, "Cool. disappear on me, leaving my house a shambles, and leave me a dead cell phone. Nice of you to leave me a lot of useless phone numbers though . . ." When I got to my bed side, I discovered that my cell phone charger was missing as well ! Okay, now this is starting to smell like a plot ! I had no doubt that my charger was probably in one of their bedrooms, but there was no way that I was going into enemy territory and risk dealing with all those land mines with out my morning Diet coke. Who cares anyway, I don't really want to talk to either of them!

I went back down stairs to take my meds and wake up a bit. As I popped the top of my last can of Diet Coke to wash down my pills, I took a closer look around the kitchen. I had stayed up late last night to bake a double batch of chocolate chip cookies, and I had cleaned the kitchen before I went to bed. You couldn't tell it now. Since it was late, I hadn't taken out the trash before I went to bed, and yet, my children had decided to to pile trash on top of the closed lid all morning, rather than actually take it out themselves. As a result, after the kids left, and while I slept, my six dogs had concluded that an angel, or possibly some sort of canine Santa Claus, had left them gifts of illicit snacks and playthings. As I grabbed a fresh trash bag and began to follow their trail of destruction, I eventually found all six of them, exhausted, and sleeping like innocent babes in my bed. URGH ! No point in getting pissed off, this all just part of the never ending insanity that I call my life.

Speaking of craziness, Remember Khris? The teen that lives on the other side of our duplex, who was Jake's best buddy for such a long time? Well, over the past couple of years, they have sort of drifted apart, mostly because Khris turned 16 and started getting involved in "other" things. As hard as it is to believe, Khris is now 17 years old, and even though I still think he's basically a good kid, I've had to tell Jake more than once that he just can't hang with him anymore. Even his parents have had to get tough on him, I'm not really sure what the situation is with him and his folks anymore. All I know is that he has started smoking pot, (which I confronted him about, and he vehemently denies to me) and his current girlfriend is pregnant. Anyway, there was a time when I used to consider him one of "my kids", a regular here at my house, but all that has changed. For a while, He went to live with his biological father in Arizona, but that didn't work out, and now he's back and living where ever he can find place to crash. Occasionally, I will run into him at the skate park while I am walking the dogs, and we will chat, but mostly, I just feel sorry for him and all his teenage confusion and struggles.

This past week, he has come knocking at my door three times - all in the middle of the night. I think it was Sunday, I was up late and I had a knock at the door at 3AM. It was Khris, looking for a lighter for one of his friends who smokes. I gave it to him him, but thought it was just a little odd.
Thursday night, or early Friday morning, my dogs heard a car pull up in front of the house at 3:30AM. I went to the window to discover that it was Khris, his girlfriend, and a couple of his buddies coming home. They apparently found the front door to his parents house locked, and had no where else to go until they woke up, so they spent the early morning hours hanging out in the shared drive of our duplex, and driving my dogs insane with "stranger danger" barking. I finally had to go out and ask them to hang out somewhere else so that my dogs didn't wake everyone in the house, and the whole neighborhood as well.
Last night, I was about to shut things down and go to bed, when Khris came knocking again. Apparently, my dogs are getting used to him showing up in the middle of the night, so they didn't even bark when they saw it was their old friend. He wanted to know if he, his girlfriend, and a couple of their friends could crash here for the night because his parents had locked them out again. He said,
"I know you think I'm some sort of a pot head, but I'm really not. We just need a place to sleep tonight."
I said, "Of course not Khris, I think it's perfectly normal for teenagers to be knocking at my door looking for a place to crash at 4AM."
He looked down at his feet and said, "Yeah, I know, I just thought that Jake might have an empty bed in his room . . ."
"I'm sorry honey, but Jake has Quentin sleeping over tonight, and Heather has two girl friends staying. I already have a houseful . . ."
"A couch ? the bed down stairs?"
I sighed, "Khris, aside from my husband and myself, I have five kids tonight, and six dogs, and a rabbit. I'm pretty sure that I am already in violation of fire codes for occupancy already. You really need to work something out with your parents, or change your lifestyle, or something. The whole, grown up, world is full of annoying rules and expectations for acceptable behavior - coming home at 4AM with a bunch of your friends, and expecting to find room at the Inn, is NOT part of that program."
He said okay and left, but I felt really bad. I know that his girlfriend is pregnant, and I DO trust him, and I know what it's like to be a confused, screwed up teenager; but I didn't think that supporting his bad choices was a loving thing to do for him.

Okay, Heather has come home with her friends, and I now have a kitchen full of silly, rowdy, of kids. I need to go supervise.

Love to all,
Susan

3 howled back:

Anonymous said...

You did the right thing...how naughty of him to knock at your door at that kind of hour. At least you were pleasant ;)

I could just imagine the dogs seeing a bag of rubbish to rip open and go through...party time! Bart does stuff like that but on a much smaller scale and he really does seem to prefer my underwear to household garbage.
Hey, maybe my underwear smells worse than household garbage! it wouldn't be the first time I've suspected as much.

:)

love ya.

Gypsy Jasmin said...

You know I thought of telling Christian not to hang out with Khris too but then I remembered high school and thought "if I tell him not to hang out with people who smoke pot he will have no friends" I instead decided to tell him that he must hang out with him in supervised situations (here).
As far as weather turning him away was the right decision... Khris is a good kid and sometimes they make bad choices too. Why is it so easy to stand up tall and strong to Khris but not to your husband and son. Ultimately, i think he came to you because he knew he could count on you, because you have never turned ANYONE away. The fact is that I think you just don't like Khris and you are afraid he will corrupt Jake.

Auburn~haired~artist said...

Actually, deep down I was thinking that a couple of them could have crashed on the down stairs bed and couch, and maybe a couple in the living room, but I knew that Jake and Roy and Quentin would be up early while I wanted to sleep in. When they came down stairs and found all these guys laid out all over the house, I was imagining all the crap they would give me for having "wild parties with teenagers" while they were sleeping. (Roy is always giving me crap and wanting to know what the hell I do all night long)

Besides, I figured they would only get two hours sleep at most.

I THINK that Jake has his head screwed on straight - most of the time. He knows what Khris is up to. If there is any thing I have learned over the past few decades, it's that parents don't have as much control as they would like to think.