Bringer of Epiphanies
I’m sure Annica is none to pleased about the epiphany I gave her yesterday. I guess it’s just my job to bring people down to earth. Not that I’ve ever brought anyone down to earth before. Usually I’m too nice. I just nod and say nice little platitudes that do nothing to express my real feelings. But not yesterday. I wasn’t mean or anything, but Annica needed to understand a few things.
If you’ve been reading, you understand she’s been having some serious trouble with three 18 year old boy house guests. I would probably never allow three 18 year old strangers to crash at my house, but then I’ve been a teacher and understand how awful teenagers can be (teenagers can also be quite delightful, but you have no idea what you’re getting when you invite a stranger into your home). She finally had enough and cursed them out while wearing a tank top. She has a gigantic tattoo on her arm (and a couple of other gigantic tattoos elsewhere) so she feels powerful and wild and able to confront hooligans if this tattoo is showing.
Anyway, she was lamenting the fact that she had to be so rough with the boys. She just didn’t understand why they thought she should be their mother. It became clear that she thought she was going to actually hang out with these boys and have fun being silly with them. She had no notion that they would think she was an old fuddy duddy who lived to wash dishes that other people messed up.
Of course, Annica is not old at all. She’s only 30 and very young at heart. I’m young too. We have a great time together and have lots of laughs and hardly ever act like adults. But the fact remains, to 18 year old boys we are nothing more than wrinkled up old ladies who spend our time doing old lady activities such as cooking dinner and cleaning up messes. I was a high school teacher. I understand this. When you have 15 year old boys ask your 24 year old self if you have any grandchildren you quickly get the idea that they have zero concept of age (the girls are generally much better about it). Poor Annica. She’s never been confronted with this fact before. She just goes along in her daily life thinking she’s young and fun, not realizing that young people are totally and completely clueless and immature.
So I had to explain this to her. I wasn’t going to, but she kept asking me why they thought she was old. I finally gave her a list.
1) She owns a nice, large house.
2) She has nice, matching furniture.
3) She has two children.
4) She has a husband.
5) She has a job.
Thus she is a grown up. The dear woman was completely crestfallen. She’s never considered herself a grown up before so she took it rather hard. I can’t say I blame her. I still have a hard time considering myself a grown up even though I’ve had women twice my age beg them to give them child-rearing advice (again, when I was a teacher).
I hated to be the one to disillusion her, but as I was enumerating her adult qualities a light went off in her eyes. Then a portion of her soul died. Or at least withered momentarily. It’s just too bad the boys were so incredibly rude and she had to experience the transition from care-free youth into responsible adult.