He Was Raised By Wolves

Many, many years ago, when I was married to The Teenager's dad (aka "The one night stand gone horribly wrong"), my mother-in-law called me for the umpteenth time to apologize for her son's loutish behavior. I would get many calls like this during the short duration of our marriage, and even got them for years after our divorce.

During one of our conversations, she tearfully told me, "I tried. I really did. He was raised in a nice home, I don't know what happened."

I feel her pain.

Sometimes I look at The Teenager and think the same thing. Actually l look at him a lot and think that.

I made a special dinner for him Monday night to give him a good send off before he drove to Atlanta for a few days to school shop. I invited his long suffering girlfriend, The Petite Beauty, to join us. I had just finished a great book titled "Lipstick Jihad" by Azadeh Moaveni, about a first generation American woman of Iranian descent, who returns to Tehran to better understand her culture. Craving some good Iranian food, I made Gormeh Sabzi, which is sort of stew with beef and herbs over chelo (rice steamed with lots of butter). He hates everything I cook, but The Petite Beauty is always polite enough to eat. I told her all about the book as she likes to read too and gave her a little history of the Iranian Revolution and what Persia was like under the Shah.

The Teenager was in rare form that evening. He hated dinner and refused to eat. He kept texting his asshole buddy all during our meal. He got into it with his grandmother because he invited asshole buddy to Atlanta without asking her first, resulting in a larger flurry of texting. My mother is the only senior citizen that I know that can throw a guilt trip via text messaging. He had to be told to remove his ball cap at dinner. And not to swipe his bread through the butter dish.

His girlfriend became fed up with his behavior about an hour after I did and demanded to be taken home at once. I had served fresh peach preserves at dinner as I had put up a dozen jars that afternoon and since she liked them so much, I insisted she take a jar home to her mother. When The Teenager came in my room to get my car keys (his car was predictably out of gas), I reminded him to take a jar for her.

An hour later I got a craving for a piece of bread smeared with preserves, so I got up and went to the kitchen. Poking through the refrigerator I couldn't find the open jar we had at dinner and assumed that maybe we had finished it off. Turning to the counter I noticed that eleven jars remained and was annoyed because obviously The Teen had not given his girlfriend a jar to take home--even though I reminded him to take one.

Typical.

When he got home, I was still up and hooked on back to back episodes of "Will and Grace". He came in to give me my car keys and handed me a small envelope with my name on it. Inside was a lovely personalized "thank you" note from The Petite Beauty's mother for the preserves.

Oh God no. Please tell me no, that he could not possibly have done what I think he did. Please let me be wrong for once. Maybe I canned thirteen jars, not twelve.

"Teenager, what jar of preserves did you give P.B.'s mother?", I queried. I already knew the answer, but I needed to hear it from him before I started screaming.

"The one from dinner, duh. That was the one you wanted me to give her, right? She liked them a lot", he replied, flopping next to me to start watching the show. We love "Will and Grace".

"You gave her mother a half eaten jar of peach preserves???? What is wrong with you?? You call her right now and explain. I am going to die of embarrassment", I fumed and hissed at him. That woman is going to think we are straight up white trash for sure.

Why does he do these things to me???

"They're already in bed, but I'll see them tomorrow at orientation. I promise I'll explain, why are you such a nag? She won't care."

I tried. Really I did. I'm sure he must realize on some level that it's not okay to give people gifts of half eaten food.

One of my friends from the gym suggested that I make a tradition of this. For Christmas, I can give her a half eaten plate of cookies. Birthdays, a half eaten box of chocolates. Perhaps I can convince her it's a strange custom of our family, a symbol of our affection.

I know she must pray nightly that her sweet child doesn't marry The Teenager and his crazy family.

I don't blame her one bit. The older he gets, the more he acts like his father.

God help us. I have to get that Marine recruiter over here. I have a spare bedroom, I may offer to put him up for a few years until we can drop (read: hog tie and leave him at the gates) The Teenager off at Parris Island.