ShareThisBy MARK PATINKIN
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
You Know You Have Teenage Boys in the Family when:
_ Their outerwear becomes a hooded sweatshirt, any season, any time of day.
_ You routinely find empty soda cans in the pool table's pockets.
_ The major food groups in the house are Doritos and Domino's.
_ As well as candy with odd names like "Nerds."
_ You come downstairs for breakfast and there are two friends sleeping on couches.
_ You find gum in the pockets of pants that have just come out of the dryer.
_ At the movies, they always order the extra-large drinks _ in cups the size of oil drums _ and an hour later, get a second.
_ Every few hours, kitchen surfaces become mysteriously sticky.
_ They start speaking a new language, using phrases like: "I'm mad souped." "He's diesel." "That's clutch." "He's nasty at lacrosse." "Did you see that guy get wrecked?" And, "That play was money."
_ Tide isn't enough anymore; you need to add Clorox and Shout Pre-soak.
_ There are more poker chips scattered around the basement than confetti after a Super Bowl parade.
_ Your longest morning ritual is no longer the shower, breakfast or newspaper, but walking up and down the stairs saying, "Now you really have to get up."
_ And the response is always, "I can't."
_ And when you finally tell them it's 7:40, and they have to be at school by 8, they say, "So what?"
_ They insist they're not hungry at dinner, and an hour later, eat two bags of microwave popcorn.
_ No matter how many times you tell them to bring up their hampers, they leave them in the laundry area, using them as dressers for months while you keep refilling them.
_ Every trip they take out of the house sparks a request for a $20 bill.
_ And when you do hand one over, you never get change.
_ You keep finding old drinking glasses behind the curtains with congealed stuff at the bottom that won't wash out.
_ Every sweatshirt has thumb-holes cut into the sleeves.
_ You allow them to stay up an extra hour if they turn off the hallway light before coming up, and the next morning, it's indeed off, but every other light downstairs is on.
_ Orange juice is guzzled directly from half-gallon cartons, which, when empty, are put back in the refrigerator.
_ No matter how much the 15-year-old pounds the 13-year-old, the 13-year-old will no longer give up.
_ Half-eaten plates of leftovers that turn to concrete _ like mac-and-cheese _ will always be left un-rinsed overnight.
_ Sometimes, they will even be found in the same state in the sink, directly under a faucet that was never turned on.
_ Suddenly, every kicked-off sneaker in your entrance area is the size of Titanic.
_ Their most commonly used phrase is, "I swear it wasn't me."
_ The second-most-common: "That's so unfair."
_ You periodically hear unfamiliar ring-tones from beneath the couch cushions, because that's where their friends keep dropping their phones.
_ A full cookie jar lasts 15 minutes instead of a week.
_ Same with entire pantry shelves of chips.
_ Every boy who comes in the house has a one-syllable nickname.
_ Bicycles you don't recognize appear in your garage for days, and then, suddenly, are gone.
_ There are piles of trash surrounding, but never inside of, trash baskets.
_ They go to Subway for full meals at odd times like 3:50 p.m.
_ After a sleepover, the basement resembles a maximum-security prison after a riot.
_ And when you tell them to clean up, they say, "Clean up what?"
_ They travel in clusters of no less than four.
_ Televisions are always left playing.
_ And tuned to shows featuring either sports highlights or the World Series of Poker.
_ Every soda can you find has been crushed from the top down.
_ After insisting on lights-out at midnight, you wake up at 3 a.m. and hear people in the kitchen.
_ And sometimes, at that same hour, there's the thump of a basketball against the garage backboard.
_ Their version of cooking their own gourmet meal is to microwave a bowl of Three-Cheese Rotini purchased at CVS.
_ The household computers start slowing down because each now has 7,000 downloaded songs.
_ You get them up at 1 p.m. on a Saturday, and they can't believe you woke them so early.
_ Finally, if they need a ride to a friend's house at 8 p.m. on a Friday, they ask you at 7:55.
_ And accuse you of ruining their weekend if you say you can't leave for 20 minutes.
_ Then, after freaking out on you for 15 minutes, they announce the plan has changed and they're not going after all.
Let me know if I missed any.
I'm mad-souped to hear your suggestions.
