Parenting Humor
Your Teen's Bedroom

It's around 11:00PM. My husband is working the graveyard shift. The kids are both away for the night. My 16 yo daughter is at her friends house. They had a nice day of swimming in her friend's pool, while I was home in this sweltering, hot house. We have no air conditioning, so of course I have every fan we own, including the whole house fan, running full blast. My 13 yo son is staying at his grandparents house, with his 11 yo cousin. I decide to forego watching the 11:00 news. Can't hear it anyway for all of the fans running. Let me tell you, that whole house fan is one very noisy fan! I decide I'd rather go to bed and read a good magazine. I have tons of books to read, but there seems to be never enough time for those. I tend to have better luck being able to get through a magazine article. Just as I get myself settled in...in front of the fan that is blowing on me full blast...it is suddenly pitch black. I can't even see my hand in front of my face.

No problem, I think to myself, there's a flashlight on my nightstand. I'll just grab it and go see if it's just the breaker box, and all I'll have to do is flip a switch and I'll be back in business. I really want to know how to get the dust out of those little nooks and crannies of my windows, and I was just getting to that part of the article. Doesn't every stay-at-home mom want to know how to get those parts of her windows clean? Of course we do. We're home all day...heaven forbid somebody should come and [gasp] see dirt in the far recesses of our windows. OK, flashlight is in hand...I flick on the switch and nothing. Hmm...where are the batteries? Oh, it doesn't matter...it's a disposable flashlight. Now is not the time that I wish to dispose of it. Nonetheless I toss it aside.

Still, I think to myself, no problem. All I have to do is get through the laundry room, kitchen and the corner of the living room, then I'll be in the hallway and can surely find my 13 yo son's bedroom door, as it's the first door to the left. Providing the husband and kids actually set their shoes back out of the way, as I tell them to at least a hundred times a day (or so it seems to me!), it will be a piece of cake getting through the laundry room.

All right...I'm through the laundry room. Steel toed shoes are really not all that comfortable...when you kick your big toe into one. At least I'm through the laundry room without a broken toe. It might be bruised a bit, but it's still intact. Now I easily navigate through the kitchen. Much to my surprise the kitchen chairs are all pushed into the table. Things are on my side now. Through the living room and the hall I go. That was easy enough. I feel my way along the wall to my left, and there it is...the doorknob to my 13 yo son's room.

I'm a tad hesitant to enter. Why on earth did my husband put the breaker box in that room when we built this house three years ago?! Sure, we don't have to go down the basement steps to get to the breaker box. That would be a dangerous thing to do in pitch black darkness. Then again...our son's bedroom? What was he thinking?

I take a deep breath. It's always good to have extra oxygen. The boy always keeps his window closed tight, no matter how hot the weather is. I figure if I inhale deep enough and just let a little bit of air out every few seconds I should come out alive. I open the door, and step in...er, fall in!! Silly me, doesn't everybody barricade their door when they're going to be away for the night?!! There went all my air. I apparently let it all out on my way down.

Now, should I attempt to crawl, or should I just get up and march right over there? Marching might not be such a bad idea. Keep those steps high. 'Crunch', 'POP', I immediatley hit the floor...amazing how an unopened bag of chips sounds like a high power rifle going off in the dead of the night.

Surely I'm halfway to the breaker box by now. The worst has to be over. A couple more steps and I feel something rubbery and rather cool feeling...probably just my son's rubber snake. Then again....that didn't feel like rubber, did it? Why oh why do these things have to happen when nobody else is around. It sure is getting hot in here, and I could use some of that extra oxygen I inhaled just few moments ago. I really need to quit panicking. Surely that was just the rubber snake. Yes, that's what it was. (I'm ALMOST convinced.)

That high stepping idea didn't seem to work too well, so perhaps crawling wasn't such a bad idea after all. Slowly but surely I bump...er crawl... my way toward the wall where the breaker box is. I'm naturally assuming that gooey, fuzzy substance that I put my hand in was a science experiment for school. Hadn't I just read recently, in a magazine article of course, that it was somebody's teenage son who discovered penicillin? Yes, that's it, my son is going to be rich!!!

A couple more bumps forward and I am at "the wall". I never thought I'd see the day when that wall felt so good to me!! I feel my way up the wall and flip switches on and off. I've had enough of this and am about to give it up. I cannot seem to flip the correct switch. No big deal. I'll just go back to bed, forget about those dirty window corners, and go to sleep. It will be daylight when my husband comes home from work, and he can figure out this breaker box thing. I'll still have time to finish reading that article in the morning, and get those window corners all washed before supper. Oh dear, that little spill I took upon "entering" the room must be making me a bit fuzzy headed. How will I ever get back across this room, and get out all in one piece. What if it wasn't the rubber snake. Just the fear alone of snakes has made more than one middle aged woman keel over from a heart attack. I know it to be a fact because I read it in a magazine article.

OK, here it goes, one last flip of the switch. YES!!!!! There is a God!!!!! The room is suddenly enshrined in heavenly 100 watt light!! How many times have I told him to turn off the light when he's not using it? I guess I can excuse his leaving it on just this one time. What on earth is THAT thing in front of the door. Even in all this light I cannot quite make out what the contraption is. You never know with teenage boys. Maybe it's an idea he got from watching those "Home Alone" movies. I should have taken the time to watch them when the family rented them. Instead I chose to curl up with a good magazine. The family should be thankful for that, how else would they be able to enjoy my prize winning meatloaf once a week?!! I can see that getting out of this room with the light on, is not going to be any easier than getting in the room with the lights out.

If I got past the contraption (or should I say "over the contraption!) on the way in, surely I can get past it on the way out. At least now I can see where that rubber snake is, and avoid stepping on it again on the way out. Uh oh.....WHERE DID THE RUBBER SNAKE GO?!!!!!