Bad Moon Rising

Have you ever had a day when everything seems to go wrong even when you think you’ve got it all right? Today was that kind of day. I knew I was in trouble right away because a weird kind of tapping was going on outside our house this morning that was so odd that it woke me up and kept me up. It was reminiscent of those urban legends when the girl is sitting in the car waiting for her unfortunate boyfriend to go get gas to fill up the tank so they won’t be stranded on the dark spooky road only to realize the tapping was the boyfriend – dead as a doornail. Now that’s a cautionary tale about keeping your gas tank above a quarter tank at all times. So this was the kind of tapping – the kind of tapping that just can’t be ignored. I couldn’t even drown in out with my beloved iPod.

What’s could I do but drag myself out of bed and checked for weird noises in the house – nothing; weird noises outside the front door – nothing. Having satisfied myself that no urban legend was in play, I made my teenage son get out of bed and find out what all the racket was. I was happy that I had finally discovered something that teenage boys with driver’s licenses can do besides:

• drive around with their friends,
• recite car specs,
• ask you if they can put a nitrous tank in their car,
• say – can you hold on a minute – everytime you call them on their cell phone in a vain attempt to discern what chilling with my friends means and if it is going to cost you money,
• fight with their sibling(s) until mom and dad want to run screaming into the street,
• call you from their room with their cell phone to ask for a sandwich and milk before bed because they are too tired to make it themselves,
• state the same question in an increasing annoying loop until a parent’s brain turns to soup and they just give up and say yes,
• never clean their room causing sister to purchase large sized bottles of Febreeze, which she will insist on spraying into the room while her brother is actually there creating in house riot such as seen in cell blocks,
• spend a lot of money on fast food and other fun stuff with my bank card while I sit at home watching American Idol and trying to keep up with all the work I bring home every night.

One good thing is that the modern parent’s bank card is as good as one of those ankle bracelets they make you wear when you are under house arrest. I can see the trail of adventure from a quick visit to my bank account online and recite it back to my kids before they arrive back on our doorstep. Mommy wasn’t born yesterday.

Having discovered that I could talk my kid into going outside in the rain at 6:30 AM made me feel that for a minute I had evened the deal. I wasn’t play billiards and eating nachos with my friends but I was still in bed and he was out in the rain trying to solve the tapping mystery.

What was the noise? Nothing more than the rain water running though the gutters too quickly. Lucky, because I had just under a quarter tank of gas today, lots of places to go, and had no time for qualms derived from scary urban legends.

I turned my iPod up and went back to bed for an hour. Today turned out to be one piece of insanity after the next but for a few minutes this morning, life was sweet.