The Aerie
What a weekend it was. It was such a weekend that I'm only now
recovering from it.
My son had two overnights in a row. The first was on Friday, and it
was his birthday overnight party. True, his birthday was six weeks
ago, but we stopped having the overnights in the summer because so
many of his friends failed to attend, being out of town on vacation.
The boys played video games and watched movies and had a bonfire and
all that stuff. At twelve, the boys are starting to get a bit stinky,
too. Went down to the basement game room and it smelled like a locker
room.
They were up past 2:00 in the morning but got a little sleep before
waking up for Saturday morning cartoons. Then one of his friends at
the party clued my son in to there being a MechWarrior gaming
tournament at a local game store at noon. So, minutes after the last
friend left the party, I drove my son to the tournament. He still
smelled like armpits, but he was hanging out with adult gamers, so I
figured he'd fit right in.
His friend's dad gave my son a ride home from the tournament at 4:00,
and my spouse immediately whisked him off to the church lock in. I
tried to get him to take a shower first, but my wife was in her
panicked "New experience, must arrive early!" mode and could not be
disuaded. Still wearing the grass-stained sweats he'd donned for
school Friday morning, a smelly, hollow-eyed twelve-year-old
accompanied his sister to the lock- in.
One of the deals to get the kids to attend the lock-in was that I had
to volunteer to take the graveyard shift. I'm sympathetic: you'd've
never gotten ME to go to a church lock in, especially when I was in
seventh grade and the biggest kids were seniors. Very intimidating. So
I had to be there as "security blanket" overnight. Happy to help.
So at midnight I drove over to the church and prepared to pull my
second all-nighter in as many weeks.
My son was glad to see me and we hung out for most of the evening,
watching "The Nightmare Before Christmas" and most of "Spirited Away"
together in the Social Hall before he finally nodded off.
It was interesting to observe the teenagers since, at 41, I am solidly
and completely invisible to them. I could burst into flame or sprout
horns and they wouldn't give me a second glance. In less than a year
I'll have two teenagers of my own... hopefully I won't turn invisible
to them. But if I do there'll be little I can do about it but wait for
them to get old, too.
By the end of the evening the teenagers were asleep in front of the
big- screen TV in the social hall, an unruly pile of limbs and
sleeping bags. My son was asleep by himself to one side. It was nice
sitting there, reading a book while "Tommy Boy" played out on the big
screen, thinking about how lucky my son is that he'll soon become
visible, very visible, to all those teenaged girls...
But I'm gonna have to get that boy to shower!
[1]Last
Posted by Albatross at October 1, 2003 12:00 AM