Wednesday, May 04, 2011

You'll Never Find...

When my boys aren't making me mad about something, they crack me up with their ideas of teenage romance.
This morning I was greeted with rain and 43 degrees. I decided to forego a cold, wet run. Instead, I took Spencer's car to put some gas in it. He told me that he had scraped together $2 in nickels and quarters the night before to put gas in the car. We give him $20 a week for gas so he can drive to school and to basketball practice with occasional forays over to Ohio State or to The Men's Wearhouse to order his tux.
That seemed like plenty of money for gas until prices shot up to $4.19 per gallon.
As I stopped at a stop sign, I heard things clinking. I thought maybe empty bottles were under the car seat. Another stop and another clink made me open the console betweeen the seats.
There, I found an aluminum bottle of Old Spice body spray -- a necessity for teenage boys.
The next item puzzled me. Two votive candles in glass candleholders.
When I got home, as the boys were scrambling to get out the door on time, I asked Spencer why the candles.
"I set them down in the sunken area and light them," he said. "Adds a little ambiance."
"While you're driving?" I ask.
"No, when I'm parked at the turf or the school lot."
I know that the high schoolers hang around their cars on weekend nights and I tried to picture Spencer with his flickering candlelight.
I told him he was definitely in competition with his father who had sculpted shag in his van as a teenager.
Then I suggested that candles and cars don't really mix that well since cars are highly flammable.
"Yeah, I gotta get rid of those," he agreed.
There goes the romantic candlelight when sitting in the middle of the school parking lot surrounded by other teenagers. I guess they'll have to fallback on Plan B -- a portable strobe light that they ordered from Best Buy.
"Are you sure we can't use it while we drive around?" he asked.
"Pretty sure."

2 comments:

Lucia said...

Oh this makes me wish I was a teenager again...sitting at Cudia park with my boyfriend...
BTW...he doesn't have to lose the candles if he gets the flameless ones...the ones that look like tealights with the switch on the bottom!

Paulita said...

Lucia, You're a problem solver. I'll let him know.

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