This is MY opinion, okay? I'm not putting any words in YOUR mouth. ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME??

Sasquatch and I have had a day.


From the moment he bellowed in my still sleeping ear this morning that he was running really late for the bus and would I drive him until ten minutes ago when he shrieked at me that he couldn't possibly turn off all the lights downstairs before he came up because that would leave him down there... alone, in the dark, we've gone round and round. It's all been stupid stuff, but there's been a lot of it, and it seems like it has gone on for hours, even though I know it hasn't. Today, we've simply been on different planets.


Once again, he's ducking and dodging, diverting any responsibility or blame onto someone other than himself (aka Me), while skating blithely through the mess he's just created almost single-handedly. He's left a string of unanswered questions in his wake. Why is it that he manages to make the bus just fine on the mornings I work and can't possibly drive him? Why is it that he can walk home in the dark from downtown - past a big shadowy park - but can't turn off all the lights downstairs because "then it will be dark"?? Why does he not understand that two t-shirts and a sock is not a full load of laundry? And that if you climb in the shower while your "load" of laundry is going, the water temperature is going to fluctuate big time.


Was that a scream I just heard from the bathroom?


And here's the really weird part. I'm kind of out of practice with this, because he's been a lot better about stuff lately. He's trying - in his half-assed teenaged way - to be more responsible and reliable, and for the most part it's working. I have to try - in my half-assed motherly way - to avoid some of the landmines that I know are there. The personal responsibility issue is enormous for me, and unfortunately for the poor kid, genetics were not kind to him in that respect. His instinctive response is to deny, and if that doesn't work, move on to deflect.


Case in point: Right before Christmas, he threw a "load" of laundry into the washer and then went to school. After I had moved everything into the dryer, there was an awful noise coming from the laundry room...clunk clunk WHAM clunk clunk WHAM. The answer to the noise was found in the pocket of a pair of his cargo pants - a great big silver serving spoon...that wasn't mine. I asked him about it when he got home. Oh, he said, I must've gotten that when I spent the night at Evan's house. But why, I asked, is there a serving spoon in your pocket? And he said (wait for it) I don't know. I didn't put it there. I pursued it, since I was frankly baffled. (Not as baffled as my friend Stacey, Evan's mom, who said Am I going to have to check your son's pockets for valuables when he leaves my house?) He thought about it for a minute and then remembered some dorky game they had been playing that somehow involved the spoon. But why, I pressed, did you bring it home in your pocket?


And, the denial avenue being closed, he went straight for his number two weapon and said Evan must've put it in there.


Let's just go with that.