A Curable Disease
Until you have dealt with a fifteen year old, you are not really a parent. Those of you who have had to deal with a fifteen year old at home will agree with me. Those of you with kids younger than fifteen, just wait. I too, was a non-believer until I had a conversation with the great American philosopher, Red the Electrician.Years ago, working for a very small engineering firm, I had a lot of bright ideas. I was the youngest employee and did not hesitate to share my parenting ideas with my older co-workers. They listened while smiling politely with that smile you give to someone who is giving you advice on a subject about which he knows nothing. Finally, one of my co-workers suggested I ask Red the Electrician about his philosophy on parenting.
Red the Electrician was a quiet man in his sixties and came by the office to occasionally perform routine electrical maintenance work. One day, I found myself alone with Red so I asked him about his philosophy on parenthood. Red had never spoken more than three consecutive words to me before that day. He was on a ladder working on a light fixture when he began to speak and never looked down from his work. “The only rule you need to know about parenting is this. You take your child and love it, cherish it and nurture it for fifteen years……. Then you take it out back and shoot it!” Thinking it to be a joke, I laughed out loud. Red looked down from his work for the first time and looked me in the eye. He wasn’t smiling. I tried to avoid Red after that.
When my son turned fifteen, I remembered Red and understood a little of his philosophy. Something strange happens to the human brain when it becomes fifteen years of age. I do not understand it, but a normally functioning brain suddenly mutates into a knucklehead brain on its fifteenth birthday. The best way I can explain this phenomena is by example.
My teenage son was allowed to drive our truck to another mutant knucklehead’s house to spend the night. The negotiations went well. He was to go to his friend’s house and nowhere else. All was well until the phone rang shattering the peacefulness at 11:00 PM. A neighbor on the next block, who lived in the opposite direction from the mutant friend, called and said, “Mr. Russ, your truck is in the ditch in front of my house. I thought you would like to know.”
Prior to the phone call, my son, with his mutant brain, decided to walk home and get our other car. He and his fellow mutant stealthily walked home, quietly pushed the car down our driveway in order to drive to a third mutant’s house. The third mutant had a truck and the plan was to pull my truck out of the ditch before I would find out. In his way of thinking it was no harm; no foul.Meanwhile, back inside the house, worried my son may need medical attention; I opened the door to get my car. Surprise, surprise, surprise, there were exactly zero vehicles at my house. Clearly, this is mutant knucklehead behavior.
There are many other examples of teenage mutant knucklehead behavior such as the time he and some of his mutant friends sunk my boat in Bayou Manchac. In lieu of notifying anyone about the status of the boat, he decided it was much more important to take his girlfriend home. We passed each other on the road and he smiled and waved at me; what a nice boy. There were no cell phones in those days and he called thirty minutes after his curfew wondering if he could stay out later. When I questioned him about the missing boat he told me he only sank half of it. Right; the half with the motor!
The teenage mutant disease is most difficult but, blessedly, temporary. The mutant mind returns to normal functioning once the teen years are over. We can all be greatly encouraged by the words of another great American philosopher, Will Rogers. Will Rogers recognized the mutant knucklehead when he said, “When I was fifteen years old, I knew my father was the most ignorant man in the world. When I turned twenty, I was surprised at what the old man had learned in five short years.” Randy Russ
http://www.randyruss.com/
