- Buy your sixteen year old an umbrella.
- Have your sixteen year old lose the umbrella.
- Repeat steps 1 & 2 no less than 157 times.
- After the 158th time, buy one last umbrella and holler SUPERGLUE THIS ONE TO YOUR FACE BECAUSE THIS IS THE LAST TIME I’M GOING ALL MARY POPPINS FOR YOU, SO HELP ME GOD to anyone who will listen which is no one.
- Say Goodbye! Love you! to your sixteen year old when she walks out the door to the bus stop at 6:40 a.m.
- Say Hey! Long time no see! to your sixteen year old when she walks back in the door four seconds later, sopping wet and complaining It’s raining!
- Listen as she continues I can’t find my umbrella. Do you know where it is?
- *THINK HAPPY THOUGHTS*
- Patiently answer No, I do not. Where did you put it?
- Calmly listen to her response of Ummm, if I knew that, I’d know where it is.
- Try to restrain yourself from putting her up for adoption on the spot.
- *THINK OF PUPPIES*
- Ask Are you being smart with me?
- Don’t believe her when she responds No.
- Ask What exactly do you expect me to do?
- Hear her say accusingly I don’t know! Something? Act like you care?
- Don’t act like you care.
- *THINK OF BUNNIES*
- Momentarily consider a calm and rational dissertation on personal accountability and the relationships between cause and effect, actions and consequences.
- Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
- Offer to nail Mother Nature’s ass to the wall and/or use scissors and duct tape to whip up a poncho out of Hefty garbage bags so as to introduce an aspect of levity to the situation and lighten the mood.
- Duck and cover as great, big chunks of morbidly obese, blackened mood come crashing down all around you as your sixteen year old complains Thanks a lot, Mom. You’re awesome. Way to be there for me. What am I gonna do now? Can I borrow your jacket, at least? I can’t find mine. And it doesn’t have a hood, anyway.
- Immediately recall all those numbers you recently wrote on a check for a brand spankin’ new swim jacket.
- Speculate as to what exactly is making your left retina throb so painfully: paying full price for a partial jacket or paying full price for a lost jacket.
- Decide it’s both.
- *THINK OF CHOKING PUPPIES AND BUNNIES AND STOMPING THE GUTS OUT OF THEIR LIFELESS BODIES*
- Drop an “F” bomb or three.
- Silently yell DON’T YOU DARE JUDGE ME to all the blog readers who will read this and judge you.
- Stand in the middle of your kitchen in your jammies and listen to (1) the blood as it gushes behind your eyeballs; (2) the sheets of rain as they splatter against the windows; (3) the muffled chugging of the school bus as it slowly passes by your house sans one sixteen year old, umbrella-less passenger; (4) your day as it’s being blindfolded and shot to death by a firing squad at 6:43 a.m.
- Try to remember that there must have been a good reason why you tweeted this two week ago:
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42 thoughts on “How to shoot your day to hell using a teenager instead of a machine gun. It’s quicker and you avoid the hassle of a background check.”
Well, *my* child hasn’t lost the umbrella I got for her over two years ago yet.
Wanna know why? Because she never takes it out of her backpack, ever. Not even when it is, you know, raining cats and dogs or hippos and elephants. Nope, she just gets drenched, gets her backpack drenched and then comes squelching into the house in her waterlogged sneakers and allows puddles the approximate size and shape of the Great Lakes to amass all over my hardwood floors, W2W carpeting in the family room, couches, and her bed.
But hey, the blue, Eeyore umbrella? She totally knows where it is.
(I will admit, the wet kid who doesn’t use her umbrella is likely waaaay less frustrating to deal with than the teenaged-so-ought-to-know-better kid who would use her umbrella if she knew where it was and didn’t constantly lose it.)
My kids are not allowed to have umbrellas. They use them as weapons and we all know someone will poke their eye out if that continues. So they put on winter coats, even in 90 degree heat, in the belief that the thick coat will keep them dry. It actually makes them very warm, damp and if they get wet enough, steam comes off them.
But no one’s eye gets poked out.
At least you allow her to have an umbrella. My oldest child who is of umbrella using age also finds it a good weapon, and has therefore been banned form all umbrella usage. I went to the sports store and bought 6 of those $1.50 clear plastic ponchos that fit over him and his backpack. Yes, he loses stuff all the time too. For that price, if he loses a poncho, it won’t cause me to get an aneurysm.
LMAO.
I feel your pain. My girls wouldn’t even use an umbrella.
But when the oldest turned 21 she did use it. But would leave it in my jeep when she used it. I had 3 of them in there. And she keeps asking me where “I” put it.
They melt your heart and then stab it with a blunt pencil
I feel your pain. I tell my kids to keep umbrellas in their book bags, and I keep several in an umbrella stand right by the front door. Still, there are days when umbrellas are scarce. I can only recommend you try to be patient with her. I am dealing with the fact that my 19 year old daughter likes to “party” so much that she chose to move out of my house recently, and there’s nothing I can do or say to get her to come home. Not even taking her to the therapist yesterday helped. Of course, she has some huge emotional problems from being in a Russian orphanage, and your child doesn’t have those, I’m sure.
Anyway, not sure where I am going with this, but cherish her while she’s under your roof. I know it’s very hard, some days..
It’s raining at your house??? I’m so jealous! We’re still having 100+ weather here.
I have a fear of umbrellas that’s rapidly approaching phobia stage therefore I would not let a 16-yo girl have one of her own. They’re weapons of mass destruction, I tell ya!
Oh, well embarrass her further and buy her a hooded rain slicker with Dora the Explorer or Elmo emblazoned on the back, and tell her that if she loses her umbrella once more, that she will have to wear that and a pair of galoshes.
I nearly fell out of my chair laughing. Very funny, in spite of the wicked 16 year old
Ooooooh! Offer to buy her one of those umbrella “hats.” She’ll be soooo stylin! *lololololol*
lol I told you to hold on to that text message and that you would need it again soon 🙂
That’s hilarious (though probably not while it’s happening). I’m SO looking forward to the teenage years. 😉
It’s a good thing we can get away with just using hoodies here, I never have an umbrella, let alone the teenager haha.
Think of bunnies, too funny!
1. You knew those words would come back to haunt you.
2. I am impressed by your amount of coherent thought processes you have going on in your brain before 7am.
3. I am even more impressed by your ability to recall all of that coherent thought and blog about it.
4. When my daughter loses her coat/brolly (frequent occurrence) I remind her that skin is waterproof, and she will probably survive 🙂
I feel your pain but you made me laugh!
Lauren is obsessed with her umbrella right now. In fact? She wants to take it EVERYWHERE with us. Even when it’s not raining. That and rubber boots. Don’t break it to me that she’ll lose that love for umbrellas later on in life.
I do not know how I’m going to make it through the teenage years without killing someone
Oh the joys I have to look forward. Ugh! Bright side… couple more years and 16 year old will be off in the world and for some messed up reason you will miss the cries of missing umbrellas. Or at least try to convince yourself of that to survive the current years.
I can’t lie… I did the same thing when I was a teenager. Umbrellas, adorable $24 knitted hats, bracelets, jackets, text books… I know I’ve got it coming, too. My daughter has already started kicking her baby socks off behind my back when we’re out. Crap.
I have 2 high schoolers as well.. totally exhausting! It is like preschool all over again!
BWAHAHA — I’m so glad I only have to deal with 3 year old drama.
God…. does this happen with boys too?
I’ve got a wine bottle with your name on it! Oh the joys of adolescence!
I have the whole umbrella problem too and more recently I have the problem of my youngest children using the one umbrella we can find as a makeshift weapon,…not so much fun! Oh and you should totally write a book…just sayin!
LMAO! That is funny. So you are saying that it is going to get worse than it is now?
HA that’s so funny. Funny yet true. ;p
LOL. We have umbrella problems with our 7 and 14 yr old. The now 14 yr old lost 3 umbrellas last year and one of them was one she found in the lost and found at school which wasn’t hers. Last night we bought 3 of them from the dollar store. I am sure the first time they get opened they will break so we will need to by more. Why can’t kids wear rain coats? LOL.
I’m from Oregon, we laugh at people with umbrellas!! LOL
And what is a swim jacket??
You are hilarious. This simply made me die laughing!
Oh how fun. So this is what my life is going to be like in yrs. Right now I get half that conversation and only 1/3 the talk back.
Ahhh Heafty bags with a hole cut out for my head…brings back memories.
I think you are my hero.
Hehehe, Pepper is totally right.
Especially at the coast, because an umbrella would turn into a kite the instant you brought it outside, and then you’d REALLY be all Mary Poppins. =)
Slickers all the way, bay-bee!
YOU really crack me up ..
Apparently I will be spared from this dilemma. My 14 year old is way too cool to use an umbrella. And besides, he has a chauffeur. I drive his privileged a@@ to the bus stop at 6:30 in the morning when it’s raining.
Thank you for the laugh (at your expense) this morning! You SO could have been describing an interaction with my 14 yo…sometimes I really with I had been a better teenager myself…karma sucks! 🙂
No judgement here….just a nod of understanding…
“Silently yell DON’T YOU DARE JUDGE ME to all the blog readers who will read this and judge you.”
But what are you yelling to all the blog readers who are sitting around thinking, “Oh good! It’s not just ME being driven stark, raving, mad by a teenager…”?
Thanks for sharing this story, It’s nice to know your not alone. I have a 16 year old son and our nemisis is the ever so expensive hoodie. $40.00 for a hoodie and we’ve been through 4 of them in the last 2 years and somehow its all my fault every time he can’t find it. “Where did YOU put it” or “Great! YOU lost it”. Serenity now!
I have a few years before I have to deal with that. But I swear my daughter is trying to get a head start.
Oh how well I remember those days with 4 daughters! I couldn’t have said it better! LOVE your blog!
Hi–Love your blog! In our house, the adults lose the rain gear, so the bunny imagery is needed while explaining to a sobbing and soaking four year old “It’s only water! Deal with it!” However, children’s athletic cups (not for the 4-year-old daughter, by the way), mysteriously disappear and re-appear in odd places (laundry? kitchen table? picnic table?) ith alarming frequency. Unfortunately, the athletic cup could not multitask as adequate rain protection.
Cheers!
Best, Karen
http://ablogdayafternoon-karen.blogspot.com/
You just totally described both of my kids, and they are only 11 and 14. LOL! Kids… gotta love ’em, even if they do drive you bonkers from time to time. 🙂