Chapter Seven: Turkish Thanksgiving

Ever since 1621, Americans have been celebrating Thanksgiving. What better way to celebrate our ability to exploit colored peoples than to gorge ourselves on the fruits of their labors? Beats me. Every year, Thanksgiving for my family usually means going to an aunt, uncle, or grandmother's house for typical gluttony. But the Thanksgiving of eighth grade year was different. I sought to expand my horizons.

Upon an invite, I asked if I could have Thanksgiving with Kerem's family this year. I was pleasantly surprised when both my mother and father obliged. I was excited to meet someone else's extended family, something I'd never really done. Kerem and I had grown into really good friends, and I felt this was the culmination of our friendship.

After quite a bit of effort spent trying to button my thirty inch pants around my thirty three inch waist, I was off to Kerem's adorned in some decent semi-formal attire. My mom dropped me off at Kerem's row home, asserting she'd be there to pick me up later.

I was under the impression that this Thanksgiving was going to be a simple gathering at Kerem's. Maybe a few of his relatives in the area would drop by. However, the plan was for me to tag along with Kerem's family and attend a relatively larger party at Kerem's aunt's house. It was roughly a twenty minute drive, nothing major. Actually, I was excited to meet even more of Kerem's relatives.

As soon as we arrived, I could tell things were going to be good. As I waded through Kerem's affable olive-skinned relatives I was delighted at how they embraced me. Despite the fact that I was one of only two white people there, I encountered smiling faces and engaging conversations universally. Plus, there was an abundance of succulent American and Turkish dishes. My already constricted tummy would have to wait for freedom. Kerem and I had even brought our skateboards. We got in a few good hours of hardcore ollies and extreme power slides.

By the end of the night, I was overcome with an encompassing feeling of joy - great food, great people, and I even got to skate some. We headed back to Kerem's house, and as expected, it was time for my mom to come pick me up.

"How was Thanksgiving with Kerem's family?"

"It was real fun. We spent most of the time at his aunt's house, though. I met a lot of his relatives, they were really nice."

"Wait, you went to his aunt's house? You didn't tell me you were going there."

"I didn't think it was a big deal, we just went there and came back."

"Why didn't you tell me you were going to his aunt's house! You lied to me!"

"I didn't think it mattered! It was just his aunt's house! What's the big deal?"

"It does matter! You lied to me! You never told me you went to his aunt's house!"

"Why's it such a big deal?!?! It was just his aunt's house!"

"BECAUSE I SAID SO! I'M YOUR MOTHER! AND YOU LIED TO ME!"

I couldn't comprehend her anger. I had a lingering feeling all through that day that my mom would see traveling to Kerem's aunt's house as fishy. I never acted on it. I didn't see the need to. My mistake, apparently it was a pretty big issue to my mom.

I was incredibly irate. I explained to my mom that she was beyond logic at this point. How could she be so upset over something so trivial? There was literally no objectionable point to me going to and from Kerem's aunt's house. Yet another yelling match over something completely avoidable. Fantastic. My mother and I both went to bed that night with bitter hearts; both of us stubbornly bent on the idea that we were each in the right.

The next morning, she recanted. I think my dad may have talked to her about her outburst, as well. She admitted she had stepped over the line. So what if I had gone to Kerem's aunt's house without explicitly telling her? I wasn't intentionally deceiving her, or trying to hide anything mischievous. We made up, timidly hugging.

And so things went back to business as usual. I didn't know at the time, or I just wasn't read to accept, that business as usual would include incidents like this on the regular for years to come.

Chapter Six: Andrew Walks Home

My idea of fun has changed a bit since the start of high school. Presently, for better or worse, I'm not usually satisfied anymore unless I'm pushing the envelope in some fashion. Without going too much into detail, just know that I like to flirt with the boundaries of my comfort zones. In contrast to how far I've come, at the dawn of my freshman year my lifestyle was a bit more deferential and placid. Whereas now, where even weekdays are susceptible to any number of mischievous shenanigans, my ideas about fun back then were contained to uncomplicated trips to Wal-Mart.

And so there I found myself on an uneventful Wednesday, early in freshman year, home alone after school. Kerem called. He wanted me to accompany him and his new Indian friend, Akash, to Wal-Mart. I could have stayed home and played Runescape in the basement, but hanging out with friends on a weekday was unheard of - simply too good of an offer to pass up. Kerem's grandfather picked me up shortly afterward.

Our trio was thus complete: me, Kerem, and Akash. We meditated on life's pressing issues. Finding dates for homecoming as freshmen, karate lessons and whoop ass, and other boyish matters of concern. However, one issue dwarfed all others; we needed to get some poster board from Wal-Mart, pronto.

Not that big of a deal, really, just about a mile and a half down various main roads through the heart of suburbanized northern Virginia. We made the trek with ease, and Wal-Mart was stocked with ample amounts of standard white poster board. We made another curious find as well. Flimsy, plastic Darth Vader masks, for about ninety cents each.

Just for kicks, Kerem put on the Darth Vader mask, whilst Akash and I put down our hoods so they covered our faces. In the midst of a massive disillusion that we were somehow bad ass Sith-looking motherfuckers, we began accosting Wal-Mart employees, James Earl Jones voice impression included. The reactions we drew validated my suspicions. We just ended up looking like a couple of regular lameass motherfuckers.

Retrospective embarrassment aside, we had fulfilled our goals. The time had come to return home. The sun was beginning to set, but we still had plentiful time before darkness set in. The walk back to Kerem's house was routine, and it was about time that my mom came and picked me up.

During the ride home, my mom posed the normal fair of questions.

"So what did you guys do?"

"We went to Wal-Mart."

"Oh, how did you get there?"

"We walked."

"YOU WALKED?! It's dark outside! You could have been hit by a car!!!"

"Well, it's dark now, but we walked back nearly an hour ago. There was still light out."

"I can't believe you walked to Wal-Mart! Cars can't see you, you could have died!"

"Well I didn't get hit by a car. They have sidewalks for a reason, mom. Chill out."

"DON'T TELL ME TO CHILL OUT! DO YOU WANT TO WALK THE REST OF THE WAY HOME?!?!"

And that was it. My 'crime' was walking to Wal-Mart during well-lit daylight hours, sticking to sidewalks, and obeying traffic signals. If I was going to get yelled at for doing nothing wrong, then I was going to let my mom know she was being absolutely ridiculous, oppressive, and deranged. I let her know how I felt.

But as we all know, families are hardly democracies. My mom followed through on her threat, something she scarcely does. My insubordination was rewarded with the joy walking home.

As I began hoofing it back to my house, I dialed up some friends. I needed to share this experience, I wanted to know if I had acted out of place. After all, had I seriously just been kicked out of the car because I walked to Wal-Mart? I called my dad, and he was none too happy with the situation. Unfortunately, his parental jurisdiction was limited on this quaint weekday evening. Retribution would have to wait.

Ironically, the path from the place I got kicked out of the car back to my house was longer, darker, and in a shadier neighborhood than the route from Kerem's house to Wal-Mart. Talk about out of the frying pan and into the fire. If my mom was honestly worried about me getting hit by a car before, she didn't show it. According to her own perverse logic, she would apparently risk me getting hit by an auto just so she could make a feebleminded point.

Frustration and hypocrisy at their finest. I still felt I was right, that my mom was behaving in an uncalled for manner. Whenever I bring up teenage rebellion in class, Mr. Monteverde always says, "Without hypocrites, nothing would get done."And I think his point has a lot of validity. But I don't think this is the kind of motherly hypocrisy he envisioned.

Chapter Five: Andrew Tries (and Fails) to Look Badass

Looking back, I was a little rough around the edges, intellectually, in the eighth grade. I actively subscribed to the ideas behind The Anarchist's Cookbook and other random deconstructive anti-state crap. Yet in my infinite wisdom of how much the systems of power sucked, I'm pretty sure I would not have been able to give a ballpark definition of the word 'economy.'

Meanwhile, The Da Vinci Code was shooting to the top of best seller's lists across the world. Angels and Demons and those other two mediocre-at-best books were able to successful ride the coattail of Da Vinci to best-selling status as well. And boy, was I hooked. Dan Brown was my literary God. My taste for literature was a tad underdeveloped, and I thought these books were instant classics of the English language.

If Dan Brown was my God, then Robert Langdon was my Jesus Christ. Langdon's character seemed to embody everything I admired. He used his hyper-intellectual ability to solve grave mysteries and get laid. Specifically, in Angels and Demons, one of the recurring motifs is the power of anagrams as simultaneous art and communication. In the novel, Langdon is a fictional pseudo-expert on anagrams; and I was soon infatuated with these complex blends of beauty, text, and thought.

Clearly, the next logical step was to get a tattoo with one of these tight looking anagrams on my bicep. What better way to demonstrate my suaveness, my chic hipster style. But in the eighth grade I didn't exactly have the social connects, or even the desire, to get an official permanent ink tatoo. So black sharpie would suffice.

Using the book as a guideline, I was able to scrawl a haphazard anagram of 'Fire' on my left arm. I figured, after this, I'd need a stick to keep away the hordes of women madly enamoured with my badass tat.

That night at dinner, some odd far off instinct told me, "Hide this from mom!" The majority of dinner was spent navigating the uncomfortable balance between feeding myself and pulling my left sleeve down over the fresh anagram. Eventually my mom caught on to my painfully awkward fidgeting. She asked to see what my sleeve was covering up. I stuck my arm out and showed her the intricate design.

"Oh my God. You're not in a gang are you!"

"No mom, it's just an anagram."

"You're in a gang aren't you!!! Swear to God you are not in a gang!"

"Mom, I'm not in a gang, I just thought it looked cool."

"So why is it on your arm! That's what gangs do!"

"Because it looks cool, mom. It just says 'Fire.' "

"IS THAT THE NAME OF YOUR GANG?! FIRE?!"

At this point, my mom was inexorably settled on the idea that I was in a violent street gang. My sharpie tattoo was clearly some dedication ritual that the gang was using to initiate me. I started to cry, because my mom would simply not drop the issue. She kept asking the same questions, making me feel like I was doing something wrong. I couldn't figure out what I had done, who I had hurt. But my mom still laid the guilt on me.

I went upstairs, and tried to wash off that former source of pride. I wanted nothing to do with sharpies, anagrams, or tattoos anymore. Even if I could appreciate their beauty, my mom sure as hell couldn't.

For a good eighteen months after that, my mom was especially suspicious of potential gang membership. In her eyes, every public place I went to during that span became a potential recruitment center for MS13. Fairfax Corner, gangs there. The Colonade, gangs there. 7-11, definitely gangs there. I guess my mom never realized that gangs don't target the middle class, un-muscular white boy demographic.

Chapter Four: The Beginning

It was the August before the 5th grade. I was on the eve of transferring to a new school. I knew I would face the challenges of succeeding in the more difficult G/T curriculum as well as making new friends. However, my worries soon dissolved in the shadow of more pressing concerns.

I vividly recall it was a humid day, and some of those late-summer thunderclouds were rolling low over the mountains from the west. The rain was violently pelting the ground by early afternoon, and I could tell my parents were having some issues. My father had been spending less and less time at the house. When he was home, I could hear him and my mother arguing through the floors more and more.

That day, during a particularly intense confrontation, I could hear the loud steps of aggressive footsteps. My parents voices penetrated the paper-thin walls and floors of my house, and eventually, my impressionable young mind. My mom began yelling for me to call the police. I ran upstairs, and one of the doors in the hallway looked like it had been knocked off its hinges. My mom emerged from the broken door, and was sure to position herself so that I was between her and my dad. It seemed like I'd interrupted right before their argument reached critical mass. By then they were both too ashamed to continue fighting. I shuddered to think what might have happened, had I not responded to my mom's cries.

I was ignorant of why a married couple would ever fight like that. I was typically confused, wondering whether it was my fault, or what I could do to make it all stop. Through my sobs, I yelled at both of them, chastising their heartbreaking behavior. Couldn't they stop and look at themselves?

They didn't realize how much they were hurting my sister and I. I couldn't be around them, so I bolted out the front door. I'd take the chills from the rain over the chills their arguing gave me any day. I walked around the local neighborhoods for a few hours, uncertain of the short and long term future. Eventually, with little else to do, the prospects of using the bathroom outside for much longer drove me back to the house. In my absence an artificial peace had fallen over things. My parents were able to put their issues temporarily aside for my sister and I, but irreparable damage had been done.

I feel there's strong evidence that this could have been the start of my mom's decline in emotional and mental health. I don't know if it is simply general poor memory of my life before this point, but it seems to me that something in my mom cracked during this time. Perhaps some deeply repressed childhood trauma had emerged from the shock of the situation. I don't think I'll ever know for sure.

It became clear in the weeks that followed that my dad would be moving out of the house. I begged and begged for both parents to reconsider. But according to both of them the separation was something that "had to be done."

As my mother, my sister, and I adjusted to life without my father, my mom very rapidly ascended to new heights of neuroticism and possessiveness. She began calling my dad on his cell during the evening hours, and quite often at that. When my Dad didn't pick up, my mom took matters into her own hands.

She would pack my sister and I into the car, and we'd drive around to the local bars, specifically the ones my dad liked to frequent. My mom didn't even try to disguise what she was doing. She'd say, "Let's go see if dad is at the Bungalow."

We would scan the parking lot for my dad's unmistakable red F-150 with the ladder rack on top. When we found it, my mom would lay her trap. She would send me into whatever bar, and have me ask my dad something innocent like, "We want to know if you're stopping by the house tonight." Although it probably should have been phrased as "Mom wants to know..."

From the moment I walked into these places, I knew I didn't belong. Not only was I well below the required age of twenty one, I was usually the only person there under thirty. It never occurred to me that I was only there to make my dad look like an irresponsible father. To make him feel sorry for going out while his 'wife' and children stayed home.

These kind of stakeouts became a regular occurrence.

Looking back, I get so frustrated thinking about how my mom used me for her own political ends. My dad was a fully grown man, legally separated from my mom. Further, my mom had requested custody of my sister and I, yet she was still trying to pass the burden of remorse onto my dad.

I've since talked to my dad about what happened. He told me when him and my mom first split up, he was heartbroken. I guess he might have turned to bars to be around friends, and numb the pain with some beers. My mom made it clear that she saw his outings as him shedding his familial responsibilities so he could get drunk and test the forty plus singles market. It was probably somewhere between the two, but I can't judge my father either way.

Neither of my parents have ever acquiesced to tell the whole story, but over the years my own detective work has shed some light on the specific details of my parents' break up. From letters and legal documents I learned what caused the fight in question, the one that left more things broken than just a hallway door.

One letter particularly struck me. It was written by my dad, addressed to my mom. Evidently, my mom had taken several hundred dollars of my dad's cash so she could go shopping for herself. He articulated that he had been saving that money, and intended to use it to get my sister and I nice school clothes. I could feel the anger in my fathers words, and I shared every ounce of it. Her betrayal trespassed on material and moral principle. This was the kind of stuff that belonged on a TV, on Jerry Springer, not in my life - past or present.

I guess you could stay this was the start of it, of everything. So God damn it, thanks, mom.

Chapter Three: French Onion Soup

It was the eighth grade and Halo 2 was at its peak. I had recently subscribed to Xbox Live and could now take my hypercompetitive video game rage to the realm of the information superhighway. I had shed a few pounds since my grade school days, but my after school hours were still comparably unproductive. For hours a day, every day, I would don my headset and give my thumbs a good work out at the expense of my virtual competitors. I was even known to rant violently when my teammates failed to perform to my standards.

Despite the conveniences that Xbox Live offered me, I yearned for something more personal, more social, and, hopefully, more fun. So I decided to host a LAN party. Short for 'Local Area Network,' a LAN party is essentially a bunch of pimple-faced nerds physically linking multiple Xboxes for large multiplayer games. I figured my spacious, newly carpeted basement would serve as an ideal locale for such a gathering.

An optimal Xbox LAN party could hold sixteen people, four to an Xbox with four Xboxes. In the days before cell phones, texting, and driver's licenses became mandatory, grandiose plans could easily go awry. And sure as hell, my intentions broke down like a Compaq computer.

Two people showed up. Kerem, my witty, post-pubescent Turkish friend, and Jacob, an afro-headed Halfrican. Our numbers may have been few, but I knew were were going to play the shit out of some Halo.

My friends arrived and my mom issued a terse "Hello." The look on my mom's face exposed her obvious disapproval of my foreign choice in friends. Under my mom's watchful eye we retreated to the basement. I had a fairly modest television and gaming system already set up, and we jumped right in to some hardcore pixelated violence.

My mom came down a few times, offering food, drinks, etc, but I'm pretty sure it was just a ruse so she could spy on us. Once she departed from eye sight, I offered a few obscene hand gestures towards the spot on the stairs she had occupied just seconds before. Over the course of the afternoon my mom proudly declared various times that there was french onion soup upstairs, waiting whenever we were hungry. Junk food might have fit the bill a bit better. And my mom's cold and distant aura was certainly no help. So we passed on the soup.

After a few more thinly veiled attempts at spying on us my mom laid down the law of the land. Her time and labor intensive soup would have its day.

"Boys, come up and have some french onion soup. It's already laid out for you."

A command none of us dared to defy. We marched into my house's formal dining room, complete with full dinette set and fancy table cloth. Awaiting us were three steaming bowls of french onion soup, complete with melted cheese and bread bits. Little did we know, this would be the most awkward meal of our short lives.

As we approached our chairs Kerem and Jacob each offered a "Thanks, Ms G." My mom's response was a barely audible grunt of acknowledgment.

We sat down, and each of us cautiously sipped to test the temperature. But not my mom. She remained standing in the corner of the dining room. Watching us eat. Classic Patty G. As I found out, having your mom stare at you and your friends, noiselessly scrutinizing every movement, can put quite a damper on dinner table conversation. We remained mute and kept our motions slow. With little else to do, Kerem, Jacob, and I exchanged fleeting moments of eye contact. However, none of us dreamed of meeting my mother's intense gaze.

To make matters worse, these bowls of soup were monstrous. Absolutely filled to the brim. It was as if my mom wanted to keep us glued in those seats until judgment day. I knew none of us had the stomach to polish off the massive volumes of broth. Just a few minutes in, and me and the boys were all desperately looking for an excuse to get out of there.

So I stepped up to the plate, and excused myself from the table. Kerem and Jacob followed within milliseconds. There was easily at least two thirds of the soup remaining in each of our bowls. But we just wanted to go back downstairs and play some freakin' video games.

We returned to the basement for more Xbox action, but all three of us couldn't forget what had just happened. I don't think we'll ever forget what happened, actually. That was the first time close friends had directly experienced the coarse parenting my mother was capable of. Up in that dining room, Kerem and Jacob were able to feel my mom's emotional presence (or void, rather). That place where comfort, warmth, and approachability had long since departed.

Chapter Two: Andrew Comes Home to Two Police Cruisers

It was the Saturday after this past Christmas. I was out on the town, attired in a new tie, a gift from my father. My parents and I had avoided butting heads for a while, and I was enjoying the recent vacancy of any serious yelling matches. My mom actually let me take her car out on a weekend night, a rare treat. My mom still had my cell phone, but I wasn’t going to let that stop me from hanging out with some friends.

I picked up Stephanie and Cory, and we were off to get some ice cream. We dropped by, and my friendly co-worker, Erin, was manning the front. Her eyes bulge, and I momentarily panic; it’s the same look she gives when I’ve fucked up something really important.

“WHY IS YOUR MOM CALLING ME?!”

“Uh, what…? I haven’t had my phone for a couple weeks.”

“WELL YOUR MOM CALLED ME! AND KEEPS CALLING ME!”

Apparently, after Erin sent a text about a drug dog (that’s for another story) to my phone, my mom began harassing her. My mom would try to get Erin to admit to ridiculous crimes. Patty even suggested the lovely idea that we were laundering massive amounts of drug money through Maggie Moos. It got to the point where my mom was perpetually calling Erin, trying to get to Erin’s parents. Erin’s mother eventually had to intervene, and tell Patty G. to quit being the ‘Community Mom.’

I was palpably pissed. This new information stirred hot emotions. I don’t like it when my mom sneaks around, especially given my mom and I’s recent conversations about, namely, not sneaking around each other.

I was going to have a word with my mom about this choice act. At the same time I wondered if it would even make a difference. I decided it was time to head home, so me and the girls split ways.

I pulled down my construction-scarred street, and the all too familiar figures of two Fairfax County police cruisers caught my eye. They were parked in front of my house. A million anxieties rushed through my head. Maybe my mom had finally made good on her numerous threats to have law enforcement types search the house. Or maybe my mom was just trying to give me a nice scare, crazier things had happened. No matter why the cops were there, I didn’t see this night ending well.

I walked into the house and one of the cops was taking down a police report. Great, that meant there was some sort of reportable ‘incident.’ My mom filled me in on what happened, but I took her words with a grain of salt.

“Your sister called the police on me. Allison lied about what she was doing with your cousin, and so I tried to find out what really happened. She started crying and complaining, she must have been too emotional, and called the police. I was just trying to be a concerned parent, like anyone would, and get down to the facts.”

My mom’s recall was half directed toward me, and half directed to the cop. But even more, her tale was fully tainted with the pseudo-caring voice she puts on when she’s talking to a stranger. In this case, a stranger with state-granted authority.

I darted to see Allison. She was at a neighbor’s house, talking to the police. She had been crying a lot, but she filled me in on her side of the story.

Evidently, my sister had been with one of my cousins all day. My cousin and Allison told my mom they were going to shop at the mall at around noon. But their ride didn’t come until three, nothing they could control. When my mom found out about this little delay, she freaked out. My mom started calling my aunt and uncle, and scathing my sister for ‘lying’ to her about going to the mall. My mom assumed that this three hour gap had been filled with sex, heroin use, and any number of illegal activities. In Patty’s own words, she was going to ‘get to the bottom of this.’

When my sister finally got home from shopping, at the outrageously late hour of five o’clock, my mom turned up the heat. My mom would not stop interrogating my sister, determined to find out what ‘really’ happened. She couldn’t come to the obvious conclusion that Allison and my cousin had just hung out for three hours, waiting for a ride.

When I looked into my sister’s account of what happened, I saw too many sad parallels to my own struggles. My mom was using the same scare tactics on my sister that I had grown up with. The only difference was that my sister was even younger and more inexperienced than me.

By then the police had left, satisfied that it was just a minor incident between a rebellious teenage daughter and a worried mother. Nothing noteworthy. I went back to the house, and I gave my mom a pretty substantial piece of my mind. I told my mom that she could go anywhere on this earth, and if she digs deep enough, she could find dirt. I also told her it was almost like she wanted Allison and I to get into trouble. When she keeps the microscope so focused on us, it’s easy to find flaws. I told her that if she wanted to keep calling my friends she could expect to have more parents hand her ass to her. I mentioned that she could go gently caress herself up the bum-bum, as well.

I thought about taking this altercation into the stratosphere. My mom felt no remorse for the lies she had told to the cops, and it made something inside me burn. But the words “pick your battles” resounded in my head, and I decided two cop cars in one night was more than enough, so I backed off.

The next day I was talking to my sister.

“Did mom tell you that I called the police on her?”

“You didn’t?”

“No, I dialed the numbers 9-1-1 to scare mom. Then she took the phone and hit me with it, which is what actually called the cops.”

Chapter One: My Entrance

Dear Internet,

My name is Andrew G. and I'm 17 years old. I live in socioeconomically sheltered Northern Virginia, and I regularly attend high school. I get pretty good grades, and I fancy myself as an intelligent, able, and strapping lad. I enjoy the company of women, wine, and weed. Also, I pride myself on the fact that I have pretty few illusions about what the 'real world' is.

But I have a problem. There is a hellish creature, devoid of any capacity to think or feel, that lurks on the nightmare edge of my consciousness, perpetually keeping me in a prison of negativity.

My mother.

For the foreseeable future, this Blog will be my account of living with Patricia G. I don't want to spoil the fun and spill all of my stories and Oedipal emotional upwellings in one post. The best part is that this story still ain't done. I've got a little over five months until I graduate, a little over six until my eighteenth birthday, and a little over seven until I officially move out.

So, let's play some Tetris, motherfuckers. I guess I'll start with the first ever traumatic experience, when I learned that my mom might not hold completely healthy unconditional love for me.

I was in the sixth grade: chubby, impressionable, and eager to have some fun. It was my second year taking Gifted/Talented classes at a new elementary school, and my social network was understandably meager. My after-school activities usually included taking the bus home, eating, and absorbing the glory that was Cartoon Network. I was also pretty new to the idea that people could develop and explore hobbies outside of vegetating and getting fatter.

Mitch, the kid who sat across from me (and later good friend), successfully pitched the idea that I should come down one of these Wednesday evenings and join his Boy Scout troop. The Boy Scouts seemed less depressing than sitting around watching Mid-September days blend into Autumn.

After spending all of the fifth grade living at a separate apartment, my parents had 'reconciled' their issues, and my Dad was back in the house. I figured joining the Boy Scouts would be an easy sell to Mom and Dad. What self-respecting middle class parent would ever deny their child an opportunity to join this emblematic, American Hitler Youth? (Ha, ha)

"Mom, I want to join the Boy Scouts. My new friend Mitch told me about it, they meet up every Wednesday at the school, and, and..."

"No."

"Why not? Please mom, it's the Boy Scouts."

"No. Don't you remember the time we tried to sign you up for football, and you cried the whole time?"

"Well, yeah. But this is the Boy Scouts!"

"What has gotten into you? It's those new G/T kids isn't it?!? You want to try all these new things! You're changing! I BET YOU'RE ON DRUGS!"

Text will never convey the extent of my heartbreak. I burst out crying because I just didn't know where this rage-filled outburst came from. For the next two hours my mom grilled me. I crumbled in front of her onslaught. Everything she said was wrong, but it still stung. I was peppered with questions: What's wrong with me? Where do I get my drugs? Who are these new friends?
This was the first time in my life I had felt seriously threatened by my mom. I recall the tears continued, while the rest of that night is an emotional blur in my memory.

In the morning, my mom approached me bearing hugs and sorrys. And so I returned the sentiments. Because she's my mom, and that's how I'm supposed to feel, and that's what I'm supposed to do.

A few weeks later, my Dad actually took me to a Boy Scout meeting. But it wasn't at Mitch's troop. Or anyone else I knew for that matter. Whether it was the stigma my mom created, or something else, it kind of sucked and I never went back.