How to Torture a Teenager

(Names are not used to protect the guilty.)

I had to run errands with all the kids still living at home. Had to. I had to take the older kids because they needed to go to the bank. I had to take the younger kids because I had no babysitter.

I found myself stuck in a mini-van in rush hour traffic at 4pm with 4 kids that needed to eat and/or sleep and/or be duct-taped to a tree, as their father likes to threaten in moments of mocking exasperation.

The oldest child was in the front seat, using her electric seat function as a form of torture on her younger teenage sister. She would move the seat all the way back, crowding the territory of her longer-legged sibling. When the screaming, protesting and smacking of the seat was sufficient, she would move the seat forward. Then, like a child, she would repeat this maneuver over and over.

The only boy in the van was paying the consequences (or rather, WE were) for eating way too much sugar at prayer meeting the night before. It was the worst case of SBD's I have ever encountered, despite growing up with three milk-guzzling lactose-intolerant brothers.

For those who weren't privileged to grow up with brothers, SBD stands for SILENT BUT DEADLY, the worst flatulation known to womankind. I was hanging my head out the open window in the pouring PNW rain, trying not to hurl, but, literally gasping for fresh air and trying to rid my nose of the putrid smell that probably burned out what precious few nose hairs had survived my traumatic childhood. Like a morning sickness flashback, I was dry heaving over the side of the mini-van, while wondering if the 5-year old daughter stuck in the backseat with him was going to have permanent brain damage.

To the annoying beep-beep of his Gameboy, the boy was kicking the seat ahead of him in perfect syncopation, annoying his sister with every sensory faculty available to him.

My dear younger teenage daughter was being tormented from the front and from behind, so she did what any good teenager would do - started yelling. She was threatening to throw the Gameboy out the window and threatening the older teenage sister ahead of her. The cacophony of yelling, giggling, gasping for fresh air and fart cliques (he who smelt it dealt it! he who makes the rhyme committed the crime) was a symphony of insanity.

I was in the hot seat, literally, because the oldest teenage daughter kept turning on the seat-warmer on high and cranking up the heat so she could make me think I was having a hot flash, which they all think is hysterical.

So, I did what any good mother would do. I carefully modulated my discipline. I ruled out spanking, ruled out cutting off their allowances (they don't get one anyway), I ruled out extra chores.

I simply reached over, shut off the seat warmer, AGAIN, turned on the radio and CRANKED the classical music. The louder they protested, the louder I turned it up. Because I was still hot-flashing, the window was rolled all the way down so we were the center attraction in rush-hour gridlock.

We drove this way the rest of the way home, four kids yelling and ducking in embarrassment, and the mom serenely driving her minivan, thumping the steering wheel in time to the most beautiful sound in the world.

Revenge.

(originally published 3-8-09)

The Lord Works at Target

Sometimes the Lord speaks in a loud voice.  As the Scriptures speak to us, we clearly hear His guidance and direction.  There is no doubt in our minds.

Sometimes He speaks in a quiet whisper.  Something spiritual we have stored up in the treasurehouse of our hearts, rekindles and whispers its message back to us.

In the Scriptures the Lord spoke through the wind, through a donkey and even has claimed if we won't praise His Name the rocks and stones will cry out.

Yesterday, He spoke to me through a Target cashier.

I was shopping for....um...things I don't want to buy when children are around, or anybody else, for that matter.  They are private articles of clothing I am even too embarrassed to mention.

Friday morning seemed to be a good time to lurk in that aisle of humiliation and shop alone.

But I wasn't alone.  A teenage girl and her pimply boyfriend were in shopping for the same articles of clothing, but they weren't embarrassed. 

"They should be embarrassed," I kept fuming to myself, as I strategically tried to be wherever they weren't.  I didn't want to know what they were buying, I certainly didn't want them to know what I was buying.

He was standing with his hands in his shorts, another mannerism I don't understand in teenage boys, and they weren't in a hurry to make their selection.

I found myself wanting to say something sarcastically convicting like, "How long have you been married?"

Instead, I fumed in my heart and despised the bold ways of this wicked generation.  I am always appalled at the sins of this generation that are flaunted in my face daily.  Things that we didn't dare speak of, teens practice in public.

When I checked out, I unloaded to the cashier, a friendly woman my age I often choose.

"I finally figured out why I hate buying these things," I began my rally while she scanned my items.  "I can't stand being in there and watching teenage girls bring their boyfriends into that department to help them buy stuff.  It just makes me uncomfortable.  It makess me want to take their pictures and show their parents what their kids were doing that day!"

When I took a breath in justification,  she interjected with a soft smile, "Their parents probably don't care.  That's probably why they are doing those types of things."

"Yea, you're right," I added, basking in her agreement of my mortification. "It was just disgusting.  This kid is back there with his hands in his pants, helping her pick out things.  It was just gross."

She continued feeding my fire, her soft smile accenting the truth, "In fact, I know it is because their parents aren't spending time with them or taking them to church or anything like that."

"I know! I agree.  Their mothers probably don't care."

"You know," she continued, still  tapping with her  rod of gentleness, "we really need to pray for them."

I looked her full in the face.  I knew I had been rebuked by the Lord.  Rebuked in a quiet, gentle way, one that so tenderly replaced my thoughts with His.

My sail was no longer filled with the winds of righteous indignation. I asked, "Are you a Born-Again Christian, too?"

"Yes, I am. I just love Jesus so much!"  With His name on her lips, her faced glowed with something I surmised was the Shekinah glory.

"You were right to remind me to pray," I admitted spiritual defeat.  "I was offended and didn't even think to pray."
"They really need prayer, all these people.  They need prayer and they need Jesus."

"I know, and I needed to be reminded.  Thank you for the great word, sister.  I appreciate the encouragement."

One humble servant of the Lord, a cashier at Target, spoke to me with the voice of the Lord, humbled me and brought me back to the matter at hand.  I viewed them only as wicked teenagers, I should have viewed them as lost souls that needed to be saved.  I should have prayed.  I should have given them a Gospel tract.  I should have invited them to a Bible study.  I should have done anything other than what I did, condemn them.

We know and love John 3:16.  Sometimes I forget the verse right after that.

"God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved."

As I walked away, rejoicing that the Lord loves me enough to intervene in my life, and prayed for the teenagers I had condemned.

I wondered if  Heaven was watching the activity between two Christians, who don't even know each other by name, but had a few moments of spiritual fellowship that impacted each of their days.  For those few moments our hearts were bound together in worship and praise for Jesus, and a desire for souls to be saved.

All because, today, God spoke to me through a Target cashier.

Anything You Say and Do, Can Be Blogged Against You

I have another new form of punishment and torture for my children – the internet. Now that they know that I know how to blog, and do, they are under constant scrutiny to provide the next fodder for my cyber-soliloquy. I even carry a small notebook in my purse, and doodle random actions and exclamations, and keep a running Word document on my youngest child.

For years I have attempted to journal the comical things they say and do on my daily calendar, or in small notebooks for each child. But, who can keep two decades of calendars? The notebooks were read and re-read so many times the pages fell out. So, now I have the means of chronicling their lives and not only broadcasting it to a much wider audience, I can have it preserved forever

– as long as my hard-drive doesn’t crash (again)
-as long as I remember to backup my computer
-as long as someone doesn’t spill milk on my computer (again)
-as long as I remember yet another password

Now, when I hear bickering, I pull out my notebook, not always so discretely, and begin writing. If I don’t have a notebook, I grab a napkin or a scrap piece of paper. When they notice the writing, they sometimes begin to elevate their diction to a level of acceptability.

Sometimes, I may just casually ask, “What did you just say? I’m not sure I got that right?” with hands posed industriously with pen or keyboard, and they give me THE LOOK. We all know THE LOOK. All kids use THE LOOK on their parents. It is when their eyebrows and lips morph into the expression that quietly shouts both “What are you thinking?” and “Are you really my parent?”

Then I give them the PARENT LOOK back. We all know the PARENT LOOK. All children have seen the PARENT LOOK after they have dared question the superior wisdom and authority of their parental unit. It is the look when the eyebrows raise and the lips barely smirk, and we are quietly and victoriously shouting back,
“Yes, I AM thinking” and
“Yes, I AM your parent” but it adds,
“And if you don’t behave better, I am going to wear leopard stretch pants or a sweater with beads, mirrors and sequins sewed all over it the next time I take you out in public…and THEN I am going to blog you. Because, remember,

Anything you say and do,
can be blogged against you.