MORE Proof that teenagers are amazing!

Imagine having a person you don’t trust in charge of the thing you love most. That’s my definition of parenting a teenager.


The president of our company has a DashTrac on his son’s car. The child KNOWS it’s on his car and he STILL does stupid things! Kids amaze me.

One evening last week he told his parents he had a meeting at work, so he needed to go to the mall (where he works) for this very important, mandatory employee meeting. He assured his parents it would probably last an hour, which meant he was scheduled to be home at about 9:30pm.

This kills me. At 9:30 he calls his sister’s cell. “Tell Mom and Dad my meeting is gonna run late. There’s nothing I can do about it.” OK folks, let me repeat that he KNOWS the DashTrac GPS tracking device is on his car.

Then he commenced to leave the mall, in his car, with the tracking device – and head to the local bar district. All the while his Dad was watching the entire maneuver via home computer.

Nobody is immune. Everyone with a teenager lives with a terrorist version of someone that they love very much.

Rudy On The Move

I hate to sound like some old drunk at the end of the bar, but when I went to college I didn’t have a car. I didn’t have an American Express card and I didn’t have parents paying tuition. Know what I had? I had a scholarship, snow boots and a clue.

Dammit Rudy ran out of travel budget. Translated that means he spent his card to the limit and now it won’t work. I’m pretty certain he’s out of gas somewhere between Maryland and Alabama, but can’t really bet on it, because I don’t know exactly where he is. Once again, I will rely on the kindness of strangers and the grace of God to get the world’s most clueless human back to college.

Rudy Strikes Again

Who drives 600 miles to an unknown destination, breaks into a house that might be his sister’s (based on a photo of someone that looks like her roommate and a Dark Crystal video) and falls asleep on the couch? Dammit Rudy.

“I didn’t really break in. The window was easy to force open.” Not exactly what I wanted to hear. Either my daughter lives in constant danger of some maniac breaking into her house or my son is sleeping on some nice people’s couch. Either situation is cause for concern.

Are You Kidding Me?

Dammit Rudy. Now he's in Maryland.

No cell phone (can't find the charger) and armed with a GPS for Dummies. He spontaneously drove from Alabama to visit his big sister before college starts.

Apparently the fact that he didn't have her address or phone number was no deterrent to the sheer joy of taking a trip.

Are You a Driving Role Model For Your Teen?

Are you teaching your teenager bad driving habits? I complain about my son all of the time, but this morning it hit me. I have contributed to the driving mess he is.

A recent survey sponsored by AAA and Seventeen magazine revealed that 86% of teens admit to driving while distracted. What amazed me were the distractions. Music, food and cell phones. Adults are no less guilty of the same, and I fear we have sent the wrong message to these kids from the very start. We are a generation of muli-taskers, and driving isn't a sacred single-task event.

Do You Wonder?

My son, Dammit Rudy, got a $560 speeding ticket last week. This was about a week after the $260 ticket for crossing center line (texting) and about a month after the$180 ticket he got exceeding the speed limit. Dammit Rudy is not my favorite child right now.

Apparently there is a difference between "speeding" and "exceeding the speed limit." Who knew?