White Trash Mom

Day Three - Take Me to A Bar, Please!

Day Three of TRCD.

I now have warts and stray hairs growing out of my chin, and my skin is turning a putrid shade of green. A scruffy broom stands in the corner of our bedroom, poised and ready to whisk me into the night air, cackling with head thrown back in wild abandon.

Yes, it's true. I've turned into the Wicked Witch of the Midwest.

The battle continues. Last night, I really thought she was almost finished. Princess in Waiting (Teen in Line's older sister) had done such an excellent job of helping sort through the desk from hell, finding years old lists of pretend rock bands (The Spastic Elastics...), highlighters that had stopped working in 2002, Lip Smackers from the 3rd grade. You get the picture. But there was still a huge pile of clothes in front of the closet, and the book shelf had to be dealt with. The project had taken on a life of its own.

In Teen in Line's defense, this is how projects tend to domino when Princess in Waiting, Organizer Extraordinaire, takes over. A molehill turns into a mountain. Now, granted, this was no molehill. We pretty much had a mountain to begin with, but this is like comparing Pike's Peak in Colorado (14,433 ft above sea level) to Mount Everest (29,000 ft above sea level). However, Big Strong Daddy told her she had to finish this project before she did anything else, and we've already caved by letting her go to her Girl Scout service project activity (hey, that was a volunteer commitment...) and a youth group activity (hey, it's church, man...). So, I feel pretty strongly that she's had a little time off from the room from hell, and she just needs to FINISH.

So, she gets out of the shower (that process took an hour and 20 minutes, start to finish...don't get me started...) and proceeds to lie down on her bed, stick her MP3 phones in her ears and start thumbing thru Teen Vogue.

Uh, hellooohhh?

Tacky Princess: You need to finish cleaning your room.

Teen in Line: Now?

TP: Yes, now.

TIL: All of it?

TP: Yes, all of it. Your sister is willing to help you, so get on it!

TIL: Well, she says I have to do my bookshelf and closet and dresser drawers, and all Dad said I have to do is my desk.

TP: Just accept the help that she's willing to give you and get it done.

TIL: Get what done?

TP: All of it.

TIL: All of what?

TP: Get up off your buns, and get to work. Now.

TIL: I'm just wondering what part I have to get done.

TP: If you don't get up off your bed right now, I won't be responsible for my actions.

And then, slooooowly, at the rate that molasses pours down the side of a maple tree in Maine, she makes her way up to a sitting position on her bed. And ever more slowly, she manages to swing her long legs over the side of the bed. With face fully contorted, she rises up off the bed, as if this action alone might just be her last. Head hanging, she picks a single piece of clothing out of the pile of about 20. She stares at the piece thoughtfully, decides that it must have been worn for more than 30 seconds and tosses it into her laundry basket. She lets out a sigh as if that's enough for today but thinks better of it and picks up another piece.

I can't take it another minute. I leave the room, checking my watch.

3 pm.

It's 5 o'clock somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean.

It's time.

Will anyone join me for a virtual martini?

Day Two of Teen Room Cleaning Drama

I poured the vino at 4 today. Hey, it's 5 in Manhattan. Who's going to argue with me? And I've got PMS to boot. Again, I ask you. Who's going to argue? Certainly not my Big Strong Man...(he's faaaaarrr smarter than that, I can assure you.)

So, yeah, we're on Day Two of our TRCD (that's Teen Room Cleaning Drama for you rookies out there...) Princess in Waiting, almost 17, offered to help her younger sister with this onerous task yesterday, but she got turned down. Can you believe that? If someone offered to help me clean my house, I'd be falling all over myself accepting their kind offer (other than the fact that they'd see how the house really looks before it gets cleaned up...). I mean, this is her sister, the Organizational Princess Herself. This is the child who helps ME organize stuff. She's the one who helps ME decide what to keep and what to throw away. She could run the show on Clean Sweep and How Do I Look. And Teen in Line turned her down?

Why, you ask?

'Cuz' she doesn't want to do any work, of course.

'Cuz' she'd actually have to do the task that's been assigned to her.

So, last night, at 11 pm, when she still hadn't completed the task at hand, Big Strong Daddy told Teen in Line that she could do nothing else until her room was picked up. Period. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. End of story.

For those of you who don't fully get the picture, that translates in a teen's world to:

• No TV
• No computer/Facebook/email
• No Playstation/handheld games/Guitar Hero, etc.
• No MP3
• No Phone
• No going anywhere with friends
• No FUN, You're DONE

So, this morning, lucky me, I got to go to work, and never was I happier to do so. I arrived home this afternoon to what, you might ask? A sparkling clean room?

Nope. Barely started.

She was playing a game with her older sister. Scrabble. Apparently, that wasn't on the list of forbidden items above...Good God in heaven. It's 4 pm, and I'm drinking.

Teen in Line has now discovered what's good for her and has accepted Princess in Waiting's offer of help to get the overwhelming project of cleaning her room finished. She now has about 1 1/2 hours until her Big Strong Daddy gets home.

Tune in tomorrow for another installment of:

As the Teen World Turns...

The Top Ten Five Lies of Teens

Tacky Princess wrote an awesome post yesterday about the struggle to get her daughter (14) to clean her room.  I laughed.  I cried.  I mostly laughed.  Because it wasn't happening at my house. 

TP's post inspired me to write today's "The Top Five Lies of Teens".  My on line friend (I say he's a friend, he might say I'm a stalker) Guy Kawasaki wrote a great column on "The Top Ten Lies of Venture Capitalists" .  Today's masterpiece offers you FIVE lies and it involves teenagers instead of venture capitalists because teenagers are far more ruthless. 

1. "Yes, I ate dinner."  This means that sometime in their teen life, between the ages of 0 and now, they ate dinner.  What they really mean is that they had crackers and spray cheese, a diet Coke and frozen Girl Scout Thin Mint cookies while watching "Best of American Idol" and testing their friends.

2."I'll do it in a minute."  This means that they are going to stall and hope you forget about the task you asked them to perform.  If they wait and stall longer enough you will have a problem come up at work or better yet...you'll get mad at someone else.

3."I didn't know you meant...."   This means that they realize they are completely BUSTED in a "stall" tactic or a rule violation, so they are trying to use the old "insanity defense".  In a courtroom the insanity defense is used in situations where someone kills then buries a group of people under their back porch.  In the household of a teen it is used like this:
"I DIDN'T KNOW that if I called my best friend in Australia and talked for 30 hours straight it would cost a fortune."

4."You are SO MEAN."  Translation:  If I am a big enough pain in the butt, you will give in and let me do it.
In other words, DISTRACTION.

5."I know you said only 2 friends BUT I actually invited 12..." She drops the bomb that you are having 13 for dinner and sleepover instead of 3 at 5:55, when the party starts at 6pm.  You say yes to a few people and before you know it, she's put the full court press on you for 12.

Remember parenting a takes skill and the ability to see through the smokescreen and diversions.   In the words of our late President Ronald Regan:
"Trust but Verify". 

How Soon Is Too Soon to Pour the First Cocktail?

Who the hell decided that 5 pm should be the appropriate time for the first cocktail? I mean, what gave someone the right, 60 or 70 years ago, to be "the one" to set that standard that the rest of us alcoholics poor losers have to strive so hard to live up to? Why wasn't it, say 4 pm or, better yet, 11 am? When you've got teenagers, I daresay, it ought to be adjusted on a day to day basis.

To recap our day...

Tacky Princess: So, just a reminder, you need to clean off your desk today and finish cleaning up your room.

Teen in Line (13): (with look of shock and abject horror upon face) What?

TP: Yes. Remember? We discussed this just last night. You need to clean your desk and finish picking up your room.

TIL: Today?

TP: (no, for Halloween...) Yes, that would be today.

TIL: I didn't know you meant today.

TP: (keeping an even tone of voice) Yes, I was referring to today.

TIL: (sounding as if she has just been mortally wounded...) Oh...well, then...

TP: So, why don't you get started, then.

I go on about my business, proceeding like the Army to flutter about the house like a whirling dervish. OK, perhaps that's a bit of an exaggeration. However, I did accomplish a LOT today.

45 minutes later...I found my daughter where? You guessed it. Her favorite hiding place. The bathroom. She could spend the entire day in there. Her room appears to be in exactly the same state as it was 45 minutes ago.

TP: (through the door) What have you been doing?

TIL: Well, I organized my hairbrushes and stuff...

You have no idea how lucky this child is that there is a lock on her bathroom door.

Martini anyone?

5 o'clock is way too freaking late. Give me a break. When is BlogHer? Not soon enough, I assure you.

Got teenagers? Let's hear your story. Come on, people. I need some commiseration.

Tacky Princess

BlogHer 2008 Conference

Much has been written in the blogging community about the upcoming BlogHer conference in the fabled "City by the Bay" (one of my fav's, I must admit...). Having never been to the conference, I confess to feeling a little nervous about not knowing the ropes and knowing virtually no one (well, literally no one except my good buddy Michelle!).

So, when I saw that they were going to have a special welcome reception/mixer just for newbies (or Noob's, as they seem to be referring to us...) like us, I actually had mixed feelings even then. Where would all the cool people be while the nerdy new people were trying to "mix"? (ha...) But then, they asked people for suggestions on what they wished they had known before they had come, etc., and the ideas were great, and I started getting really pumped about this conference. And not just because I get to leave my regular life for a few days...

I think we're really going to learn something there. At least I hope so. Anyway, one of the comments, which she then realized was an entire blog entry waiting to happen, was from Motherscribe. Check  out her Hot Tip List for Managing the BlogHer Conference, and send her some Blog Love!

Tacky Princess