Saturday, January 17, 2009

I should watch my back

My kids are driving me crazy. And at the risk of sounding paranoid, I think they are doing it on purpose.

Since I am now officially in Mourning for one year, I cannot go to social gatherings. In my case, that includes a lot of bar mitzvahs and the likes. Now since people consider me to be very social, they think that that will be a problem for me. Well, it isn't. (and while I am at it... a pox on their houses for thinking that!)

However, the downside to my forced seclusion is that while my husband continues to go to all these parties, I am home with my overtired and selectively deaf children. How many times can you say: Go To Bed? It seems clear enough. Three basic words. But no one listens until I go ballistic.

Or, like tonight, my nine-year-old daughter comes into my office when she and her 11-year-old brother should both be in bed, and she says to me: "I am very sorry to say that you should be ashamed of your son." (If I didn't recognize her immediately, I would have sworn it was my ninth grade teacher speaking to me.) Of course, I don't even want to know what I should be ashamed about because I know from previous experience that this can't go anywhere positive. Even though I refuse to acknowledge her presence, she just can't wait to tell me that he is trying to break into a website by giving its home page false information.

I know that he can try all he wants because it isn't going to work. She doesn't. She is indignant that he would stoop to such levels and now he is angry because she has not only told on him -- but she has labeled him as shameful. I just want them both to go to bed. So, I go ballistic and balance is restored.

Normally that would be enough for one night, but my older son has been away for the weekend and apparently he doesn't want to miss all the fun of driving me nuts. I call him an hour and a half before he is supposed to be at his predetermined pick-up point. I specifically ask him if the bus is on schedule and he says yes, but that he will call if it looks like it is going to arrive early. I say: "Fine, let me know because I AM GOING TO PICK YOU UP."

So fast forward almost an hour and a half, when I jump into the car in the rain, and drive off to get him. As I am entering the highway I see a wet hitch-hiker who I stop to pick up. (Generally I am opposed to doing that, but in Israel my rule is: only pick up hitch-hikers wearing yarmulkes. I also do a quick visual screening thing, but I will address this further in some future post.)

I ask the fellow where he is going and he gives me a vague answer in Hebrew slang: "To the Center." This sort of means the Tel Aviv area or thereabouts. I tell him where I am going and he decides it is good enough so he hops in. We proceed to have a lovely chat until I hear my cell phone ring. It's my 13-year-old son. I answer the phone and tell him that I will be there in about 10 minutes, at which point he yells into the phone: "No mom, I AM home. I got a ride. I asked Dad to tell you before he went out."

I am not even sure who I should kill first.

Keep in mind that I am out in the rain with a nice stranger -- now driving somewhere for no particular reason other than feeling that I owe my hitch-hiker the decency of dropping him off where I said I would drop him off. It's not his fault my kids are trying to drive me crazy.

No comments:

Post a Comment