Congratulations !
You have been awarded points.
Thank you for !
- Story Listed as: True Life For Adults
- Theme: Family & Friends
- Subject: Comedy / Humor
- Published: 11/25/2013
Weekend Away
Born 1965, F, from Gauteng, South AfricaMy son recently went on a school camp. It was more of an ‘orientation’ weekend, for the grade 8’s to get to know each other and the teachers, but as far as I was concerned, it was a camp.
So while my son lay outstretched in front of the television set with the remote firmly positioned in one hand and a packet of chips in the other, (Now where have I seen this picture before? Oh yes, now I remember – my husband!) I ran around like some crazy neurotic mother, checking and double checking everything.
I am what is commonly known as an ‘in case’ packer. I tend to pack a lot of unnecessary extras for ‘just in case it rains, or just in case it gets hot’ etc. You get the picture.
By the time I had completed the daunting task of ensuring that my son was adequately equipped to not only survive his weekend away, but possibly a natural disaster as well, I was nothing more than a pathetic excuse for a human being.
With the perspiration pouring off my wrinkled brow, I attempted in vain to get that darn sleeping bag back into its original mini bag. After spending at least 30 minutes heaving, puffing, squeezing and squashing the sleeping bag, I finally concluded that it must be some sick conspiracy by the manufactures of sleeping bags to drive the consumer insane. I could visualize some little Chinese man sitting in his office, rubbing his hands in glee and chuckling to himself just thinking about us attempting to get the sleeping bag back into its original packaging.
I finally conceded defeat and just showed the blasted thing into a plastic bag and attached it to my son’s ever expanding luggage.
The morning of his imminent departure arrived, and the poor child was barely able to carry even one of those heavily laden bags out of his room, let alone out of the front door.
Total panic and pandemonium broke out. Somehow I had to reduce the contents of those bags by half within 20 minutes. This may not seem like any great feat, but considering it took me about 8 hours to pack in the first place, it was going to take all the skill that I could muster to re-pack it in such a limited time. In conclusion – I really do well under pressure!
With the bag repacked, we hauled him and his baggage into the car, made like Michael Schumacher, and before we knew it, my son and his luggage was loaded onto the bus destined for his weekend away.
It was at this point that my stress levels reached a new all time high, and after a few frantic hand signals to him to phone us when he could, he was on his way.
My entire weekend was spent washing, cleaning and re-packing everything in sight. Cleaning is something I do when I am stressed. Well actually it is one of two things I do when I am stressed. Eating is the other, but as it was only the first week of my new diet, I opted to stick it out a little longer before I once again blew a perfectly good diet.
By the time Monday arrived, you could eat off my walls and floors.
At one stage, my cleaning frenzy got so bad, that I overheard my daughter pleading with her friend to come and fetch her, as her mother (yes, that would be me) looked as if she had finally lost all her marbles, and as long as she kept moving, she felt safe. Her concern was what would happen when she finally went to sleep. Would she find herself in some spin cycle drenched in bleach?
At last Monday arrived, and we went to collect him from his ‘adventure’ away.
The look on my sons face as he disembarked from the bus said it all.
“How was your weekend?” I asked. (Pretty dumb question considering his facial expression, but being a mom, we do like details don’t we?).
“Awful, horrid, tiring, difficult and a total waste of time!” was the response I got. (And I never saw that one coming!)
At first I thought it was just him, and that it could really not have been as bad as he was making it out to be, until his friends affirmed his comments and opinion. Some even went as far as to liken it to ‘boot camp’ or ‘the camp from hell’.
This got me thinking. Why would perfectly healthy thirteen year olds consider a little roughing it up in the outdoors as punishment?
Then the penny dropped. How could I profess to be so surprised when most teenage boys these days spend every waking moment with a mouse (no – not the furry little rodent kind), or a game controller firmly placed in their hands. This is occasionally replaced by the T.V. remote.
The only physically demanding thing they do is when they have to get up to either fill up or empty out.
I have on occasion been known to forcibly remove my son and his friends from his room, despite the usual case of kicking and screaming in defiant protest (Let me state that I have developed the art of 'selective hearing', so all the uproar sounds like muffled grunts to me) and to their horror I insisted they play outside.
In the interest of fairness, I do give them a quick orientation course and explain the basics. After a brief introduction to things like the lawn, the sky and that big blue body of water called the pool, a word or two of encouragement that they will be just fine, and “no” that green stuff called the lawn will not swallow them whole, before I know it, they are indulging in some good old fashioned outdoor play.
Sadly this does not normally last very long, and before I know it, they are once again slumped in front of the computer or T.V. screen. Sigh!
These days, PT, or physical torture, as my children so aptly call it, is no longer compulsory at schools, thereby resulting in a society of unmotivated, lazy and generally over-weight children, and then we as parents sit back aghast and bewildered as to the reason why so many children suffer from obesity?
In comparison to his friends children, my son looks like an Ethiopian refugee. Thankfully for him, I don’t allow the ‘junk food binge’ like most of his friends parents do, and I actually force him to eat those horrid things called ‘vegetables’, and take-outs are reserved for Friday night only.
As parents we owe our children a good start to life, to teach them to eat correctly and the benefits of exercise. What they choose to do as young adults is really no longer our responsibility, but as children we can sow that seed in the hope that one day it will reap positive rewards.
For now, I will continue my daily ritual of ‘enforcing’ some outdoor time despite my son’s protests and under the breath cussing, and maybe one day he will thank me for it, and maybe one day I will also win the lottery. We will have to wait and see which comes first!
(Watch for my next short story: The Joys of teenagers!
.jpeg)
COMMENTS (1)