I can’t tell you exactly when it happens … somewhere between thirteen and fifteen.  Our sweet, thoughtful little children become members of a new species, the “teenagers”, and begin to think differently.

The elder teenagers teach the younger ones how to be sarcastic, evasive, and how to answer just about any question with one word.  They learn how to give the adult a “look” that means they think we are utterly hopeless.  The get good at telling us how to dress instead of the other way around.

These creatures have thought processes that no other species understands, least of all the “adult”.  One such thought is the fact that the adults’ lives suddenly and absolutely revolve around their own.  I live with one of these creatures and have many stories about this particular characteristic.  For example:

He and I get our hair cut at the same place.  We both needed haircuts really badly, so I made back-to-back appointments and figured we would just wait while the other was getting done.  It would save me a lot of driving anyway.

Well, he went first and he was perfectly happy for me to sit and wait for him.  Mothers don’t have anything else to do except wait on their children, you know.

But when I crawled into the chair, he eyes got really big and he said, “You mean I have to wait for YOU to get YOUR hair cut?! 

A fate worse than death.  Apparently, he had told a bunch of buddies he would be free to do whatever it is they do the minute his haircut was finished.  Because, of course, my life doesn’t matter and I should be awaiting his next command to take him wherever it is he wants to go now.

He was silently calculating the number of days until he gets his driver’s license.  So was I.

I was in Houston last week when my cell phone rang.

“Where are you?” his panicked voice asked.  He didn’t see me leave because he was still sleeping when I left home.  (Teenagers are always sleeping.)

“I’m at a meeting in Houston,” I replied.  “I warned you I would be gone today.”

He was alarmed, to say the least.  He had much more important things going on than business meetings, like playing golf and eating pizza.

“But I told everybody you could drive us to the golf course!” he exclaimed.

“Then you told them wrong,” I answered.  We both calculated the number of days until the driver’s license again.

When I got home, he was out-of-sorts.  “What’s wrong?” I asked innocently.

“We had to cancel the golf game because you weren’t here,” he said in a huff, like it was all my fault.

I remembered, of course, that teenagers think that we belong to them and are at their every beck and call, and I laughed.

Many thoughts raced through my mind.  I could try to reason with him, but that doesn’t work too well with this species.  I could get mad, but that would just add fuel to the fire.  I could ignore his insanity, but that wouldn’t accomplish much.  I could threaten him with punishment if he didn’t straighten up his act, but that would just make his mood more foul.

So, I walked over to him, tussled his hair, gave him a kiss, and said those four words every teenage boy hates to hear.

“Go cut the grass.”