Teenage happenings

A large part of being the parent of a teenager is that of being a full time, ready at the drop of a hat, taxi driver. I hope I don't complain about this too much, as I am grateful for the opportunity to drive my darling daughters anywhere, anytime, in a safe and sober fashion, rather than risk their safety. It does, however, place serious limitations on my own life, but I guess it keeps me drinking tea when I'd far rather be having a glass or two of vino. Quite a good few of my eldest daughters friends received cars for their eighteenth birthdays, so much so that the school can not accomadate them all in the parking area. Such a different world from the one I grew up in. Driving lessons and cars were so far removed from reality or even wild hope when I wrote matric, that they were not even a remote consideration, and even in university there was only one second year student who had her own car, and that was, "like, amazing!" 
Anyway, we had my daughter's friends over to get ready for a night out, and you could hear them down the street, laughing and chatting while they glammed up.  "He did WHAT!?" "Nooo way, what did she say?" "Never ever!!" " He asked me if I would like, kiss him under the mistletoe. I told him I wouldn't kiss him even if I was under an anaesthetic." "You're so hilaaaarious!" Shrieks of pre - party delight out the window and into the night.

They now favour the club scene in town (I know, I know, I said they'd never be allowed to go to these dives, but Miss Suzy Q No 1 broke the ice and now I just go with the flow!) The really cool places are, naturally, in the seediest part of the city. Bad enough to see them in the dark, I'd hate to see what they look like by the light of day. They exist in a rat warren of one way streets, and as we cruise by, drunken car guards fall like leaves almost under the wheels of my car. It's a hairy experience to say the least, and then I am left sitting alone, watching my baby disappear down a dark alley, wondering if I'm ever going to see her again. Bouncers take on super status in this dark and dingy underworld, and I have to wait with my engine idling, looking nervously around me, to see if one of Miss Suzy Q No 2's  underage buddies doesn't get bounced. All this to hang out and listen to cool music and meet the boys. Well, what can I say, nothing's really changed much, I guess, only that I had to hitch hike wherever I wanted to go, day or night, but that was another place and another time, which I have ensured my daughters never have to inhabit.

I'm a stickler for having perfect directions, to avoid getting lost in these insalubrious surrounding, so my girls are well trained and give me a map in good time before we go. Having now acquainted myself with the most popular haunt, I was all set to go, when my daughter's buddy informed me that they were in fact meeting at a club, which was "like, one block up" from where I had envisaged us going. "Are you absolutely sure it's right next door, in the same street?"  I asked innocently, as I had my route mentally planned already. Affirmative. So as we cruised past the club I now knew, and then, up a block, then two, to find ourselves back on the main drag without finding said new club, my blood pressure started to rise. "No, you went the wrong way," the stupid child had the cheek to say.  "Ok," I say through gritted teeth, as I can hear my daughter's heart pumping madly from the back seat, "can you please tell me exactly how to get to this place, bearing in mind we are now back on the highway?" "It's like down there, here, left, no right, there it is, no it's not," she asserts, as I pull up in desperation to ask the most inebriated car guard of them all if he perhaps knows where we should go. And so it goes. Finally, keeping my temper barely in check, and getting ready to head for home, we turn down yet another one way street, at least three blocks from our original venue, and she cries triumphantly, "there it is, I told you it was like down this road, you just like went the wrong way!" 


She got out of the car just in time, and there definitely won't be a next time...!! 


Kinda grumpy,


Suzy Q