Teenage boys are a menace to society. They occupy the twilight zone between childhood, adulthood and hoodlumhood. They listen to the wrong music, they forget Mother’s Day and they live in squalor. There seems to be little reason to house and feed these perfect eating machines.
Consider my neighbor’s kid, Patrick. His parents insist that there was a time when Patrick was beautiful. He looked forward to bath time. He loved Sesame Street. He went to bed without arguing. Patrick was living proof that superior parenting results in a superior child.
Then, around his fourteenth birthday, something happened. Patrick turned into a teenager. It was like those movies where the nicest guy in the world gets attacked by a werewolf. He recovers from his wounds and life is peachy. Then the next full moon comes around and BAM! His bones stretch, he gets hair everywhere, he smells awful and his personality takes a turn for the bloodcurdling.
But his rampaging hormones made Patrick worse than a werewolf. Every day was a full moon. Puberty doesn’t take a day off.
Suddenly Patrick’s parents had a snarling, angst ridden monster under their roof. He had to be stopped. They tried reason. They tried threats. They nearly tried a silver bullet but gave it up when they remembered that wolf bane hadn’t worked.
Then it hit them. There was only one way to cage this beast. This boy needed a girlfriend.
It wasn’t as if this was a new concept. Everyone knows that male puberty is the evil genie dying to get out of the bottle and girls are the cork. Now it was just a matter of how to manipulate Patrick into a relationship with someone who would squash him beneath her big toe. This job called for a specialized skill set. This job called for someone both subtle and ruthless. The feminine touch was required.
In no time at all, Patrick’s mother was leading her son to his doom. Dad couldn’t help but feel sorry for Patrick but, at the same time, he couldn’t look away. It was like watching Picasso paint a train wreck. The poor kid never knew what hit him.
Mom started by picking out Patrick’s school clothes for him every morning. She told him he needed to look more presentable because teachers subconsciously grade based on appearance. To his credit, he was suspicious. Patrick looked to Dad for confirmation. Dad hesitated. Mom shot a warning glance across Dad’s bow and he caved. Dad smiled, nodded meekly and made a mental note to spend the rest of his life working off the bad karma.
Then Mom upped the ante. She dropped hints about how women like men who smell good. One night at the dinner table she mentioned that she had first been attracted to Dad because, unlike most of his male friends, Dad showered daily. She suggested Patrick give it a try. Knowing how every teenager longs to be treated as an adult, Mom even suggested that Dad let Patrick borrow his cologne. The woman was brilliant.
Soon, Patrick was well dressed and sweet smelling – honey to high school girls. They were climbing over each other to get their claws into him. His cell phone was lighting up with texts from “just friends”. Mom’s strategy had worked perfectly.
The coup de grace was as elegant as it was deadly.
It happened on a Thursday night. The three of them had gone out for ice cream. They were digging into their frozen treats, talking about nothing in particular, when they were interrupted by a “just friend”. Julie was all of fifteen, just months out of pigtails and braces, but she had the look of a sniper. Patrick was her target and he was in her sites regardless of his piracy protection attempts.
Patrick introduced Julie to Mom and Dad and something strange happened. Mom and Julie exchanged a look. The females sized each other up, one the crafty master, the other the wily apprentice. Top secret information was passed between them. Then, in the blink of an eye, it was done. Mom invited Julie to join them. Patrick made room on his side of the booth and his fate was sealed.
A few days later, Patrick and Julie officially became boyfriend and girlfriend. A few years later, they were married.
Now, my neighbor tells me that Patrick and Julie are expecting their first child. From time to time, Patrick thinks back on the adolescent mess he was before Julie came into his life. He remembers what it was like to be ruled by his puberty and he wonders whether it was worth it to sacrifice his inner werewolf on the altar of civilized behavior.
Then, he remembers the boy he was before he met the woman who changed his life.
That’s when the man who will always be his mother’s son smiles.
