The Three Things

Yesterday, The Spare to the Throne left the nest, complete with a computer that lacked some screws, a flat screen TV that lacked a power cord, and a tea kettle without a whistle.  But yep, he's livin the dream, because he's wanted to go to Butler  for pretty much all of his vertical life.  Heck, he's not even worried about the air-condition-less dorm.  He's pretty happy.

One of his roommates was already there when we arrived.  His mom was chatty, and his dad was on the floor on a beanbag chair.  The boys wandered off to unload and the parents chatted about the boys.  We found that both boys are pretty quiet, have a small group of close friends but know and get along with everyone, and both are messy (read:  pigs).  Roomie's mom mentioned that they've talked a lot about time management.  Hmmm.......I had a talk with Seth, but not about time management.  We talked about The Three Things.  "What three things," asked the mom.  "Drinking?"  "Nope, he knows my stance on that."  "Drugs?"  "Nope, if he doesn't know my stance on that by now, then he hasn't listened at all."  "Sex?"  "Nope, not exactly."

The three things are as follows, and in this order:

"1.  If you think that you want to change or deface this body of yours that I have looked at for 18 years, you need to call me first.  If you feel the need to get a piercing or tattoo, then fine.  I'm not going to try to talk you out of it.  I just want to be sure that you go somewhere reputable and that you aren't going to come home with a disease that you can't get rid of.

2.  If someone is pregnant, I do not want to hear about it through the grapevine.  This includes after you are married.  I need to be the first to know, or it could get ugly.  That being said, there are condoms in your first aid kit.  Use them.

3.  If you are calling me from jail, it had better be to tell me that you are getting comfortable for the night.  I will NOT bail you out.  You can, however, call Jim.  He might give you bail money.  I won't.  Call him, because I don't want to hear about jail after the fact.  And you know me.  I will find out.

All three kids met #3 with the same argument:  "what if it was something our friend did, and we just were in the wrong place at the wrong time?  Because then it's not my fault, so you'd bail me out, right?  WRONG.  I did not raise you to have stupid friends, so if you choose to hang with stupid people, call someone else.  "Geez Mom, that's cold."   I don't think so.  At least, not if I warned you ahead of time.

My mom is a little shocked that I tell them these things.  She says that I must think the worst of my kids.  I say nope.  If, by the time they go to college, they haven't figured out how I feel about smoking, drinking, drugs, and doing their schoolwork, then they haven't paid any attention for the past 18 years, and they should reconsider their plans, because they apparently aren't smart enough for college.  My Three Things are the three permanent game changers for a young person's life, and they are most likely to happen during the college years.

And that being said, none of them have ever cashed in on any of them.  And I'd call that a win for the mom.

Adventures in Twaziland

We headed north last weekend, for my mom's birthday celebration.  She hates talking about her age, so I'll just give you a hint:  it has a 0 and an 8 in it.  You do the math.

And so it was that we headed up to Michigan: The Heir, The Spare, The Adopted One, and my boo.  Mom and Dad live in Oscoda, and Jim had never been there, so he did his typical researching.  Told me everything about the area, like I'd never been there.  Oscoda is on Lake Huron, and is mostly a summer home location for people from "downstate" as Michigan calls the Detroit area.  There's not a lot there, but it's also 15 miles north of Tawas City, or Twaziland, as my boo called it.  (He has a thing with names........he alternately calls me Lucy, Sophie, and last weekend, I suddenly morphed into Peaches LeFleur.  He's name challenged.)

The trip was mostly a disappointing discussion about Game of Thrones and Magic The Gathering, though at one point, the boys discussed the merits of a certain female character.  Thomas said "yes, she is very pleasing to the eye."  Seth said "yeah, she's got the perfect measurements: 36-36-36, or whatever they are."  Thomas replied, "She fills out her costume very nicely."  Yeah, there were a few reminders during that trip that they were, indeed in mixed company.  Seth's response?  "You know, you always say that, and I don't even know what mixes company IS."   ::sigh::

In the last hour of the trip, they finally switched the discussion to Dr Who, which is much more interesting to me, given the fact that I watch it.  And that Jim has watched it since Day One.  They started talking about their dislike of the current writer, and what he needs to do to improve his craft.  One example they used was an episode wherein the villains were babies.  Seth said "that's what I'm talking about.  I mean, everyone  knows babies are terrifying.  There's nothing new about that."

Obviously, the Spare to the Throne does not have a future in babysitting.

Lollapa-WHO-za Part 2

And so it was, last Saturday, at midnight, that our phone rang. We had just climbed into bed, so we weren't asleep yet. I heard Dan saying "why do you need to talk to her, why can't you talk to me," right before he handed me the phone.

Thomas was talking faster than I had ever heard, while he said "I need the number for Northwestern Hospital in Chicago, real quick." What the heck? I asked him what in the world was going on, and he tried the "oh, everything is fine, I just need the number" thing that thousands of crazy teenagers have tried and failed, in a desperate attempt to forestall the inevitable interrogation by the inquisitive parent. "Oh, don't worry," he said, "we just lost Andrew. There are a bunch of ambulances here, and we're thinking he might be on one of them."

Oh, that's all? Let me get that number for you.......

Turned out they had been at the Rage Against the Machne concert, during which dozens of people were carted off by the 35 ambulances standing by as shuttles to the hospital. Basically, Thomas said that if you were under 5'6", you got "destroyed" whn the crowd surged to the front when the concert started. A couple of vain attempts by the lead singer to get the crowd to calm down finally got things a bit more under control. ""Look out for one another," pleaded Rage singer Zack de la Rocha, eventually threatening to end the show early if people didn't calm down. Why? Only seconds into "Testify," the band had already created complete mayhem among the ocean of people at the AT&T stage, with myriad mosh pits turning Grant Park into a sea of sweat, fists and elbows," said the paper. Thomas said that if you fell in the mosh pit, you'd better hope that someone yanked you up, because otherwise, you were going to be body surfed to security and hauled off to the first responders. At one point he saw someone fall, then all he saw was an ankle sticking up in a sea o moshers, and "all I thought was, that guy must be dead."

Here's his email of the next day:
"2 hours of straight energy, moshing, and going nuts. We were pretty far up (and two of the guys we're with could have reached out and touched the lead singer -- they were FRONT ROW and got DESTROYED), and anyone below like...5'10" got messed up, and Andrew is like 5'5" 5'6" tops. If you fell, you were done. People around you would help you, but if the crowd closed in on you before people could help you up, there wasn't ANYTHING you could do.

But after the show was over, 4 of us met up at the spot we said we would go to, but we could not find Andrew ANYWHERE. He left his wallet & phone with one of the other guys, so there was really nothing he could do. We ran around looking for him until about 12:30, at which point we didn't really have a choice since the trains stopped running at 1am. But somehow, some friggin way, that kid made it 15 miles back to the hotel without any phone or money.

You have to understand how absolutely scary this was though. You would have to have been there to realize that the odds of him having been in the hospital were REALLY high. This cop we asked for some information said that there were 35 ambulances making runs back and forth between hospitals. When I said there were legions of them, I wasn't kidding. You also have to understand that Andrew is both retarded (he didn't think to call his phone even though he knew we had it), and if he got in to any kind of situation in the mosh, he would have just given up basically. Scariest shit ever, but now that he's back we can look back on it and say that it was the best thing all 5 of us have ever experienced, and we're doing it again at Nine Inch Nails tonight. :D"

Oh, to be young again............

All this happened whilst we were attending the opening night of the Wizard of Oz at church, with Jill playing

Glinda. So whilst legions were carried off to Northwestern, and Dorothy was being carried to Kansas, somewhere, someone was leading a normal life. That never happens here, of course, so let's just take a gander at a vintage 80s Rick Springfield Oz tour shirt, from Purse Diva Vintage, at Main Street Vintage Online. Just keep repeating, "there's no place like Lollapalooza, there's no place like Lollapalooza....."

Lollapa-WHO-za Part 1

Thomas just got back from Lollapalooza. Hearing that the kid was going to a three day music festival in Chicago is one of those "be still my beating heart" moments for a mother. In typical Utter Chaos fashion, things got complicated.

The night before he left, he mentions to me at work at 6 p.m. that he forgot to go to the bank. This is not a good thing, since he had lost his debit card somewhere in his room about a month ago, and it hasn't been found yet. Add to that that I had lost my debit card the day before, and of course the new one hadn't arrived yet. I ended up leaving work for ten minutes to run around the corner to the bank where I have my business account. Got him four crisp hundred dollar bills, which I promptly snatched away when he reached for them. "Don't," I said, "let this money be involved with anything illegal, any alcohol, or bail money, or you're paying me back double." He responded with a roll of the eyes.

Next morning, his father drove him to the train station, for a 6:30 a.m. departure. Right as he got there, Thomas remembered that he had forgotten his $200 Lollapalooza ticket on his "desk" (aka card table) at home. Did I mention that it was now 6:14 a.m.? Dan drove like his pants were on fire back to the house, grabbed the ticket (yes, there was swearing about the "dumb kid" involved), and got back to the Amtrak station at 6:32, where te kid met him at the door, saying that the train had been delayed for 30 minutes. It was at this point that Thomas should've realized that God does, indeed, exist.

More tomorrow. Meantime, enjoy this fast moving train shirt, featuring Restless Heart -- a band whose music was featured in our wedding -- from Earth-Aware, on ebay. The only thing it's missing is the kid running alongside, holding a concert ticket.