I get up early to do some grocery shopping. it’s nice to be in stores on a holiday weekend when everyone else is out of town or still asleep.
I go to the local D’Agastinos and buy 3 boxes of VitaMuffins (they are on sale this week, $2.50 off), 6 small Haagan Dazs mango sorbets (at $1.99 each, these are pricey but I like the controlled size and they make a nice 3-point dessert), 2 cans of Pringle-Lites (these are hard to find), some butter, and one package of Multi-grain Arnold Thins. I’m home by 9.
Alexander is back from the Hamptons and is organizing his binders for school, which starts tomorrow. “Can you make the dividers?,” he asks. He’s almost 18 and will be in college next year. I tell him that he’s old enough to make his own dividers. “But I like the way you label them,” he says, referring to my use of an electronic labeler. A pTouch from Brothers that I’ve had, and used, for probably six or seven years. I tell him that it’s easy to use, show him in a 30-second lesson, and off he goes.
Within five minutes he shouts, “You need more tape.” “I’m sure the tape is fine, “ I respond, “I just put a new one in last week. Let me see it.” Without explaining why, because I can’t, he’s broken it.
An hour or so later it’s time for lunch, a two-hour ordeal. Alexander still hasn’t finished his Common Application that he’s been “almost done with” for weeks. He boils about a half box of pasta, then adds butter and freshly grated parmigiano cheese (I’m guessing 25 points). He eats lunch as he watches DVR’d episodes of Entourage. It’s now almost 1:30 and still, no work has been done on his college essays.
I decide to make a tuna-on-100 calorie Arnold sandwich thins for lunch, but I can’t find the bread I bought this morning. I remember putting away the things that went in the freezer and fridge, but I have no recollection of putting away the bread and chips. I think that maybe the store clerk handed me only two bags instead of three.
I go back to the store, explain my problem to the manager, and without hesitation, he tells me to go get the three items I bought-but-don’t-have-at-home. I do, and am grateful for his not giving me a hard time.
I come home and start making lunch. Meanwhile Alexander has moved on to his next activity. Talking and agonizing over which school he should apply to for Early Decision. And then complaining about how difficult it is to write his personal essays.
As he is doing this, I’m unpacking the groceries and I tell him the story of how accommodating the store manager was. Then he says, “You know, mom, you shouldn’t leave bags on the counter.” I’m not sure what he’ s talking about until he adds, “I thought it was trash.” He actually wants me to believe that he looked in a grocery bag at an unopened package of bread and two unopened tin cans of Pringles and thought it was trash? I think he’s kidding. He’s not.
Are all teen-agers like this?
No comments:
Post a Comment