Indoor Camping: Fixing Up the Fixer-Upper

Wednesday, December 15, 2004

Difficulties

I’m getting dressed at the gym while a woman with no cellulite complains about her son.

“He’s just so difficult,” she says. “Why can’t he do things the easy way? He makes everything so hard for himself.”

“Some kids are like that,” someone says. “I have one like that, too.”

“Not like my son,” says Cellulite-free. “He’s the reason why I didn’t have more.”

I’d add my comments but I don’t her situation. Last night a friend told me she’s placing her son in a boy’s camp because he’s become so violent. I don’t want to risk insulting her by assuming anything. Her son might be in jail for all I know.

I forget about Ms. Cellulite-free and her difficult son and try to leave the parking lot as fast as I can. A big, white Mercedes station wagon drives right in front of me at the intersection without even stopping. If I cared, I’d swear. I look at the driver and think about displaying my favorite dirty look when I notice it’s Ms. Cellulite-free.

Okay, you go ahead, I think. You’re probably stressed out from your son who’s probably in jail or on drugs, getting young girls pregnant, being difficult.

I wait until Ms. Me-first Cellulite-free Mercedes goes by and I follow. In the very back of her car is a little boy, about two or three years old. He’s sitting right next to the very back window and singing to himself.

This is the difficult son? I feel like ramming my big-ass honkin’ truck right into the back of her Mercedes. I know I could do it without denting the truck, but I want to cause damage to Cellulite-free, not the cute singing little kid. Cellulite-free has a decade before she can begin to bitch about her son being difficult. He’s got a lot of time to develop his difficulty potential if he chooses. She has a lot of time if she wants to develop some parenting skills, too.

Now I’m home and questioning my own parenting skills. The Vegan, Dylan, is in his room with two of his friends, Bobb, whose real name is John, and Speed Racer. They’re all old enough make their lives difficult without it affecting me legally. They’re still kids, though and they’re in my house. Sometimes I have to be the adult. That’s difficult.

Their door is open and Group X blasts through the house. Group X isn’t something two or three year-olds probably listen to, even though they have a song called, “I like Cheese.” The song currently playing goes like this: “I don’t want to talk to you/I just want bang, bang, bang/I don’t want relationship/I just want bang, bang, bang/I don’t want to know your name/I just want bang, bang, bang/I don’t want to meet your Mom/I just want bang, bang, bang.”

I know this song so well I have to stop myself from singing along. That might be bad parenting. Good parenting might dictate some mention of the negative impact this song might have on their girlfriend potential. That would be a difficult conversation. They’ll figure that out for themselves.

I was the difficult kid in my house. Charlie and I have a couple of kids most people would consider difficult. You don’t force conflict with difficult people. We fight back and we win, even if it means we lose. We got your attention.

The Vegan isn’t difficult. I can’t remember punishing him, ever. Even the Dentist commented on what an easy-going kid he is. Some people don’t know how to be nasty. He’s one of them. People like me see how easy life could be if we could be pleasant like that. We’re not. Somebody’s got to stir things up.

Speed Racer once mentioned he’s difficult.

“I don’t believe it,” Charlie said. “You’re so easy-going.”

“You don’t know,” he said. “I get so angry, I can’t stop. It’s bad.”

“You don’t have a sister like Cheyenneh,” Dylan the Vegan says. “What reason would you have to get angry?”

I could think of a few reasons he could have, so I didn’t say anything. I never know what people are really like. If someone says he has an anger problem, you don’t have to prove it. Everyone has problems. Some of us admit them easier than others. You can’t deal with things if you don’t admit them.

I walk by the Vegan’s room again. They leave the door open because they’re teenaged boys. They’d be gasping for fresh air after an hour. This is why I can’t overhear the teenaged girls. They don’t stink.

“It’s freezing,” Speedy tells Bobb. “Why are you wearing shorts?”

“I looked around and found a pair of pants. I went to put them on but then I thought, ‘These might not be my pants.’ So I didn’t put them on. I found some shorts, which I knew were mine and I put them on.

“Thinking back, I now believe those pants were mine. I plan on wearing them tomorrow.”

I don’t think girls talk like this. I go back downstairs to finish whatever it was I should have been doing. If it were enjoyable, I’d be doing it instead of listening in to teenaged boys talk about their pants.

Still avoiding work, I get on the phone. I notice the boys getting loud upstairs. First I ignore it. Then I listen. It doesn’t sound like Group X.

“Give it back!”

“No,” the Vegan says. “You keep throwing it against the wall.”

“Give me the remote!”

“Quit throwing it.”

“Give it back!”

The Vegan hops downstairs, gets something out of the fridge, then goes back up. It’s quiet again and he doesn’t act like anything’s unusual. I assume everything’s okay and pay attention to my phone call.

“Ow,” the Vegan says. “Stop hitting me with your shoe!”

“Give me the remote!”

“Stop hitting me!”

I’m trying to listen to the phone while listening to the boys. Bobb, whose real name is John, has excellent people skills and I’d suspect his parenting skills are already superior to mine. I’ve never seen a kid so good at resolving conflict. I’m staying downstairs.

I’m listening, though. I’m not used to hearing conflict coming from inside my own house, particularly when it doesn’t involve me.

Cheyenneh, being the Vegan’s younger sister, is the only one who can properly annoy the Vegan. Before she got her car, she made the Vegan drive her and her friends around everywhere. He agreed only for a dollar a person a ride. “They’re so annoying,” he’d say after every trip. He never looked annoyed.

One time he came back home after driving Cheyenneh and her friends. This time he looked quite annoyed.

“They only paid me $1.68,” he said. “Cheyenneh kept teasing me and putting her hands in front of my face and grabbing my neck while I was driving. I didn’t say anything, assuming she’d be normal and stop. She didn’t so I got really mad but I still didn’t say anything.

“When she got out of the car, I noticed she left her cell phone in the back seat. I picked it up and threw it on the grass. I forgot about the rock steps. It landed on a rock and it broke. Now that I think about it, it was a lot more satisfying that way.”

He went up to his room, calm and normal again.

Cheyenneh and her friends ran straight up to her room and were very quiet for the rest of the night. I didn’t think I had to tell her she probably shouldn’t choke someone who had her life in his hands.

I hear some swearing and the front door slamming shut. I think about what someone with good parenting skills would do. Yes, I’m still on the phone.

Bobb, whose real name is John, stands a polite distance behind me, waiting for me to finish my phone conversation.

“It takes a lot to get the Vegan upset,” he says.

“That was him yelling?”

“It’s totally not his fault. I was on the computer and they were behind me. I thought they were joking around. I turned around and saw Speedy reach over and pound Dylan in the side of the head. I pulled them apart and Speedy left, really angry.”

“What got him so upset?”

“He couldn’t calm down. He wanted the remote, but he threw it against the wall and it fell apart so Dylan wouldn’t give it to him. I’m going to check on the Vegan’s car, to make sure Speedy didn’t do something to it on the way out.

“Good idea.”

“Can I borrow the camera? I want to take a picture of the side of his face. It’s cool. You can see knuckle marks.”

I give him the camera and run up to see the cool knuckle marks. It’s quiet, so everything is either back to normal or the Vegan is unconscious, which some might say, is back to normal.

“You okay?”

The Vegan sits at his computer, almost grinning. “Yeah,” he says. He looks the same as he always does except for the relief map of Mt. St. Helens, Mt. Hood and Mt. Adams on his left temple.

Life has difficulties, even if you’re easy.

A little help? [] 6:32:24 PM