In Tribute to Kevinetta

It may be the weather, it may be a moon-sea-earth trichotomy or something like that, but times are-a-changing.  I may have said something incendiary, inappropriate. I may have put the size tens in the turd-fest called teenager rights of passage....again. This time, it may have involved a call to help involving pulling a trolley to a local supermarket.
As offences go I did not realise I had made a mistake bigger than forgetting her birthday.

She looked upon me as perhaps I may look upon a pile of clothes and contact lenses after night on the tiles. She was mouthing "D'er " before her brain had even a nano-second of her time to send a synapse to a mouth in "snarl-mode-to-go". This girl was so on automatic;  that it made me look manual in a world of  drive-neutral-park gears. She actually bent her knees, she actually slouched her shoulders, her arms elongated like an orangutan about to knuckle-walk the floor. Her body said "D'ER".

I was in the wrong obviously. I was so obviously being stupid. I was fulfilling her every worst teenage nightmare.

I was failing to unreasonably realise:
(a) a trolley was uncool, granny style
(b) a Daddy was uncool, especially her own
(c) local shopping was so uncool, what are large out of town supermarkets good for
(d) walking to a shop was uncool, involving broad daylight
(e) walking anywhere was uncool, yep still involves broad daylight.

I had failed to realise gang-girl-culture-hangout-posse may see her with a Dad, with a trolley, without a car. Serious street cred was in danger of being blown away like a Dylanesque wind.

So her backside was not letting any air enter the backside-couch vacuum.

I demanded, I remonstrated, I would break the vacuum, ....and she remembered like a white knight, winner-takes-all, four-of-a-kind, Famous Five saves the Day again, Ace of Spades trump carding, "Its a knockout " Joker kind of way, she had long forgotten homework to do.
Daddy showed his age and said "D'er", as I moved deliberately through the gears, first ~ why suddenly do you remember homework, second ~ why are you still sitting there then, third ~ make me a cuppa when I get back and fourth is not reached because I am an old driver in a built up area these days.

I was to shop alone.

Ventilated Jeans

So there was a time not so long ago when fashion dictated that a pair of jeans was not a jeans if it was not cut at some point, frayed was cool, faded was cool.

Therefore in case I have confused this with too much coolness in the face of a price tag. So in simple terms the jeans were deliberately cut for fashion before purchase and perhaps even to increase the purchase price.

So nowadays, times have changed, rather quickly for my slow-go middle aged mentality.

My boy through genuine wear and tear has a tear in a rather good fitting pair of jeans at the groin area. Ventilation is cool. Apparently not.

Apparently this means that I must get the credit card from its cob-webbed safe place of keeping, to pay rather ridiculous prices for branded goods. He thinks.

In my day and age a slice in the trousers was a reason for Mam to do a rather fetching patch and it was damn cool. And cheaper than buying a pair of non-branded jeans let alone a pair of branded jeans. By darn, we darned socks or at least Mam did.

I am holding firm that a patch is the best economic answer. A patch obviously not cutting it, to coin a phrase, in teenage cool that is to say his jeans in not going to be part of any family austerity programme.

My boy is about to enter a tantrum that I used to call a pout, but as an adult-in-waiting he sees this quivering of the recently-acquired-bass voice as a demonstration of manhood.

Its time for my "in my day and age" speech, a speech that will always be as welcomed as much as say a mobile phone in the Monastery vowed to Silence.

I pontificate with the threat of my non -use of a credit card, he knows I will eventually concede, I know he knows, he knows I know, the father-son bonding knows. There is a depth of knowledge known but not voiced, and in that void he will suffer the boredom of my voice on how things wer, how it should be, how it was for my father and how it was for his father before him and my great grandfather down t'pit. How the younger generation ~ him~ do not appreciate things like we ~the older generation~ do.

He is prepared to suffer a little, there is the balance now of when to perhaps hint at conceding.

By all things going nuclear- atoms are split - suffering is over.

Arbitration is needed, call in the Peacemakers, t..t...timing is everything. He is not prepared to suffer for his jeans.

I am prepared to wait to be appreciated for my wisdom, even if wisdom is symbolised in pocket-sized plastic and let Father-Son bonding be in need of some glue.

One day my son you too will make this speech to my grandson and equally forget that you wanted a brand new pair of jeans for the moral of this story is..... money does not grow on trees.

Learning to Drive

Perhaps I should start by saying with age my driving has improved as I realised getting from A to B did not require GTE to be stapled to the backside of a car and "go faster" stripes may result in "go slower" scratches.

So GPS is a wonderful thing that has saved me from reading a map for many a year now, or made me as lazy as tub of lard to bother to plan a road trip. I have found the most ridiculous location known to any in-sensible housing planner, courtesy of the GPS.

GPS is a good thing, that is in general a good thing.

So I now drive in automatic in a manual car, as the GPS lady tells me, nay, orders me to 'Turn Right' in various metres and to 'Bear Right' even when I was unaware there was a verb "To bear". I understand her ~Miss GPS~ as if she was a trusted confidante. I am her servent to her all-knowing satellite view of all things called Traffic congestion avoidance.

So today, I am the designated driver because I am Dad, my teenagers sit there and look upon the chauffeur as a necessary evil, although sunglasses are worn and sunscreens may need to drawn down in case a friend sees them with the Oldie.

It is a sad day to see children so uncomfortable in comfortable passenger seats. I am the nearest that God could have created to a Teenage Anti-Christ figure, apparently.

So I am on the road, maxing out to the speed limit and watching the boy racers pass me by, although several drivers in brief glimpses looked middle aged.

So I am bearing right as she has ordained, when Miss GPS goes walkabout and "New Routes" me to nowhere. She is preparing clourful hexagons becoming stick insects to God knows where, but Dad knows, not where Dad wants to go. I want instruction.

Nightmare on Several Exit street is had.

Miss GPS is in a tiz, she is old like me, we are mutually befuddled. Our simbiotic relationship is breaking down, man-machine interface is reduced to "What the's". I am a senile old man talking to the GPS ~ a machine ~ in very negative way and she is no "Miss" anymore, unless we are talking about missing a road network.

So this is a new road network, or as I probably re-christened it as a *****!!!!-ing new road ****!!!ing network, or words to that effect. Panic and old age plays trouble with any memory that I may appear more teenager than the teenagers, especially in front of the teenagers. Full body adult tantrum is out there like starship in deep space.

Roundabouts appear like magic mushrooming from a real world but disapperaing from the virtual world of GPS. This is an AAAaaaargh moment.

So the kids are losing faith in my driving and next it will be religion, well there may be some hope there.

Brave driving decisons are being made, if my swearing is anything to go by. We survive, as I turn back to the "Boy Racer" years and instinct hunts down exits, as if they are an endangered species. I have a mission to save the road network equivalent of a Dodo, as in "do do" exit safely.

So finally as frayed teenage nerves are re-energised from their mild paralysis and the cerebal cortex re-adjusts to cricked vertebrae. Teenagers may be reconsidering their "No fear" slogan as a way of life. Fear comes whether you like it or not.

I am put in my "Grand Theft Auto" place as my teenager drily notes I believe "Drift Right" is not in the GPS vocabulary. Neither is "Make a hand-brake Turn if you dare" a software road rage inducing law of Highway coding.

Ho hum.... learning to drive lessons may be needed before I teach teenagers to learn to drive.

A New Day Dawning

She arrives home late, later than an adult, later than the adult called Mam and Dad. The imagined dangers of the night were just imagined as entry to family home is made in a smile of a good night had and why are you still up, but whilst you're still up make me a tea kind of way.

Innocent fun has apparently been had. Laughs have been indulged, friends have been friends and who knows....enough history has been told and a bed awaits. Parents are left to imagine again, to fill in the gaps in most incredible ways, and wonder if it difficult to use a mobile phone after 11 o~clock, when you were damn good at using it, according to the bills for a good 4 hours in every other day. The bank account never lies.

We were there once hero-come-villains embarrassing a night away. Firsts are there to be taken on the road to adulthood. We were there, where excitement merges with youth, unique in its form, a youth fresh to the call of the Downtown Club and we kept our secrets too. Our parents were distant, left to imagine the cull of the night, where parents knew, from their years, sometimes out there lurkers lurk. This parenting malarkey is getting harder.

Evolution of the spoken Word

Gay once meant happy. It probably still does. Words evolve, things change in meaning. Life moves on. We grow old.

Australian convicts and their guards once spoke with a British accent, that mutated in generations to the Aussie accent. Hoorah for diversity.

But and double but again, why-oh-why does the teenage language evolve to make each sentence too long and disingenuous, it could bore the pants off a drill with pants on. And drills know how to bore.

My daughter use of emphasis-as-a-form of disgust, involves introducing multiple syllables into the language of adult-child commuiques.

"I wee-ll no-ot make you a co-offee" a child huffs

-' ok i'll have a tea' an adult speaks

" oh you-ew th-ink you-ew ar-Re So-o funny" a child puffs.

I cannot recall if I spoke the same way at her age, my age colours the memory a shade of grey. Or perhaps, Grey was the new Gr-ey.

Smells like....Sees like Teen Spirit

My daughter has changed in ways, her sense of smell has gone, her sense of vision is impaired.

I may be an over anxious father but hey thats fatherhood...... from the days long ago, when I kissed a baby' forehead and was thankful that I had calculated methodically that one arm plus one arm counted two... result!.....one,two, three... ten toes ... result! and on and on......

and one smile,......... it was a smile, that may have been soon a burp,........ but for me it was a smile...... a confirmation of how father/daughter hood would be....... and then silently and possibly immediately I started planning a University education.

Soon she too could count quite quickly her fingers and toes and more, she could read too how many fingers and toes the biology books said; soon those bright eyes would adorn a photograph, I was sure some day, wearing cap and gown.

Today she could frighten children as a Halloweeen version of traffic lights...apparently red, green and amber are "in". The smile could well be called a snarl. The arms and legs, I hope are still counting two, because the present style is baggy, next week it may be clinging.

Perfume is splattered liberally and randomly, that she may have a following of stray cats if she walks the back alleys.

And I am funding these dramatic shifts in top model-r-us.

She is finding her way, .....they say..... have patience ...they say...and I am now not planning, but praying the way may pass a University.

Like Chocolate

I am at a loss. This may be a recurring theme in my future fathering.

I am being held responsible for childhood obesity. How I hear you ask. How indeed. I the guilty parent undertook the crime of committing the act of buying chocolate. The chocolate was thendeliberatlely left visible to a teenage daughter. I am a bad father.

How could she maintain her weight, let alone actually lose weight, whilst I shamefully taunted her with delicious choccy in a fridge,

Chocolate decision making resistance is not to be left to the inner determination of a teenager apparently. If I wish to buy and eat chocolate, apparently I should discreetly eat in the privacy of my own room.

I must guess what other decisions I must make for her and which decisions I should respectfully leave to he as an adult- in- waiting that should be respected as having a mind of her own. She is not a child I am regularly advised as a pink pullover with a horsey motif is no longer princess cool.

I feel this line I tread is smaller than my boot size.