A to Z Honesty - G is for Gak

Angus on his 15th birthday, April 1, 2012.

"But Mom," says my son, who is trying to get something from me and so is employing his best Sincere tone, "I kinda like her."

Angus is 15 and cute. He has a new girlfriend every five minutes. If he would spend half as much time worrying about homework as he does about girls he would be on the honour roll instead of languishing comfortably in the department of your-son-needs-to-apply-himself.

He wanted to go to her house for a sleepover. I was like, NO, you're not going over there to make me a grandmother, NO, whaddya NUTS?

He said, "Now I'm upset because I just realized you don't trust me."

Don't TRUST ME? Didn't I use those exact same words back when I was 15? And didn't I use them only when I was up to no good?

The girl's mother didn't seem to mind. She encouraged it. I imagined her as being 15 herself, having hatched her own brood at the age of two, hanging out at the double-wide with a cigarette hanging off her bottom lip and grandbabies called Tiffany and Briana perched on each hip. But when I talked to her on the phone she was nice. She was a grown-up. She had a job and she didn't live in a trailer because when she was giving me directions she described her place as having a three bay garage and I thought nobody with grandbabies on her hip named Tiffany and Briana would have a three bay garage – unless, of course, she was living in it. Luckily that didn't occur to me until just now.

Apparently I am out of the loop. Apparently "sleepovers" with the opposite sex is the way things are being done now when teenagers who live out in the country want to hang out with others of their ilk. "Oh we have a spare bedroom because our oldest is away at university. We'll just stay up and watch movies. Don't worry, I'll keep an eye on him." I heard "university" and I heard "spare bedroom" and I acquiesced. How bad could it be?

Just to be on the safe side I scouted her out on Facebook.

GAK.

She had dyed black hair, jet black, with a big stripe of blue.

She had more piercings than my kitchen sieve, including this big snot-covered one between her nostrils and one on her tongue, which she was sticking out at the camera and looking just like Gene Simmons from Kiss.

She had a low cut shirt that almost completely showed off her boobies.

And she was SMOKING.

GAK!

I promptly sent Angus a message on FB: New rule: NO SMOKING, NO TATTOOS, NO PIERCINGS, NO DRUGS, NO SEX and I paused, flustered for a second, because I couldn't think of what else to say, so I added, NO GRANDBABIES NAMED TIFFANY AND BRIANA.

I couldn't very well say NO BLUE HAIR because Angus himself had blue hair just last year.

So he got mad at me, of course, and used the trust line again, and said he hated drugs and smoking was stupid and I was beaten by logic into submission and granted him permission even though I was imagining being a grandparent by next January.

Angus is, after all, a good boy. He is. And I do trust him. Which is not to say he's not gonna kill me if he reads this post. Thankfully neither of my children find my blog or my life interesting enough to acknowledge so I'm pretty sure I'm in the clear.

So all was well when we were driving him up to the girl's house yesterday afternoon. Our conversation was easy, and no teenaged hackles were raised when I mentioned the 14,000 piercings on her ear.

"Wait a minute," said Angus. "Were you checking out her photos on Facebook?"

"Yes. Of course. I wasn't a reporter for 25 years for nothing."

"YOU WERE LOOKING AT THE GIRL WITH BLACK AND BLUE HAIR," he said. Loudly.

I nodded.

"THAT'S NOT HER. IT'S HER FRIEND. YOU THOUGHT THAT WAS HER?" I nodded and he started laughing so hard I worried he might get pee on the back seat of the car.

When I met her, she was very normal looking. Blonde hair. Nice smile. No snot-covered ring in her nose. Demurely dressed. I was SO relieved.

Which is not to say a demurely dressed teenager can't make me a grandmother. I am fully aware of the Eddie Haskell Syndrome.

I am merely relieved that Briana's baby boobies won't be on display.