I just returned from 5 days with 5 males. Before all the green horns come out I guess I’ll admit that only one was in my age bracket; four happen to be in middle school. If I reveal that the car ride was 5 hours both ways, allow your senses to imagine the smells I experienced in that time span.
I officially hung up my skis a few years ago (and gleefully wrote about it a few times) but, since we own a timeshare week at an amazing Vermont ski resort we try to utilize at least some time there each winter. Having just started a new job last year I was unable to go, but – say hey - it turned into a buffalo-wing-eatin’-palooza guys’ trip. And, it turns out, without mascaraed eyes upon them, in that time they all perfected the art of slovenly behavior.
Like riding a bike, they easily jumped right back into it the minute we pulled out of the driveway.
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Yay me.
Now, I love boys. Some days when I pass by my teenage daughter’s room and can’t make out a bed, a dresser or a teenage daughter, I kinda sorta like them A LOT. But no mother alive will be bent out of shape when I say that boys – especially tween and adolescent boys – are really one fart shy of a nuclear meltdown.
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Within hours of arrival my first Facebook update alerted my peeps that a plunger was needed. Gawwwwd.
So much ewwwww…so little time…Here’s a simple sampling:
Boys pick through the food on each other’s plates.
They don’t bring half the amount of stuff that girls do – in fact, they seem to need very little. Some don’t even pack their toothbrush (sigh…that was one of mine).
They’ll take off their shirts, cover their faces entirely with sheets and ski goggles (thank God) and make a really peculiar YouTube video, air-drumming to Rush’s “Tom Sawyer.” They will view this more than one hundred times and laugh wildly each and every time as if seeing it for the first time.
When they play board games they will shout out hilarious answers (that only they find hilarious) and repeat inside jokes (stemming from their aforementioned 5-hour car ride) over and over and ov…
Boys are a complete and total hoot and they never ever stop eating, farting, laughing, and trying to switch the channel to ESPN.
On our final night when I suspected not very many (if any) showers were taken I demanded that they all go swimming. Soap, chlorine, it’s all good.
So I took one for the team this year and went along for the non-skiing ride. I did the Mom Thing and cleaned the condo and kept up the laundry while they tore up the slopes.
I met them for meals, met the Old Guy for drinks, and basked in some Me Time, finally getting the opportunity to check off To Kill A Mockingbird from my reading list ( … because … don’t know if I’ve mentioned … I’ve already read The Great Gatsby … )
It was fun.
And frigid.
And I aptly added about 2 pounds to my frame each day, as all non-moving slovenly types should.
Not even a lie: As I was writing this my 8th grader HONEST TO GOD farted his way up an entire flight of stairs. He was laughing/crying so fiercely he nearly threw up. Not. Even. A. Lie.
