I’ve been busy with lots of stuff. Not really sure what, but I’ve been doing a lot of it. Last weekend there was a trip to visit the grand kids for a birthday celebration. Some how that turned into bringing the two fifteen year-olds home for the week since it’s their spring break.
What? Sure, okay.
That’s been the kind of the week since they got here – me saying, “what?” a lot and not really understanding what’s going on. Somehow teens have the ability to create a zone of confusion around them that leaves grand fathers standing around wondering what just happened.
Well, that’s a lot of my life right now. Like the other day when I was ordering a hamburger and the teen behind the counter was asking if I wanted pickles on my burger. Why would you even ask that question? I was so confused and shocked – there are people who eat burgers without pickles? It took awhile to regain my equilibrium after that.
The teens have two favorite phrases that I find both amusing and annoying. First is, “I don’t know.” Which is a conditioned response to most questions like, “What do you want to do?” or “What would you like for lunch?” or even “Where is your phone’s charging cable?” I get it, I went through that phase myself.
Honestly, I still don’t what I want for dinner, but I’ve learned to just mention random food items in a vain attempt to prove I’ve finally grown up.
The other phrase is, “I’m good.”
I know you’re good, but did you want more broccoli?
Near as I can tell it can mean either, “I’ve had enough”, or “I don’t want any”, or “I don’t know but decided to be vague about it.”
The whole thing came clear to me yesterday when we were at the Santa Cruz Boardwalk and I was buying them ride tickets.
Let me back up a bit. Earlier in the week Heather and I wondered where we should take the teens, but after a few days of, “I don’t know,” we decided to not give them a choice. Instead we informed them that we were kidnapping them on Saturday.
This led to them trying clever ways to get us to spill the secret. It was then my turn to say, “I don’t know.”
So back to the tickets. After a brief conversation about how many rides they might want to do and whether or not to buy the day pass, it was decided that we’d buy $20 of tickets each and if they want more after that, I’d add another twenty.
“I’m good.”
Which I translated to a yes.
Five seconds after that, one teen said, “Could we have $22?”
“What, Okay, Sure?”
It took me a couple of hours to understand why the request was made. Turns out there are $7 rides and $5 rides and there was a ride plan all along – three $5 and one $7.
The other $20, I think was mostly spent on food – we were with teens …
I could be wrong – I kind of lost track where money was going after a while. Then I lost at air hockey and decided it was time to go home.
I’ve got to go – there’s some kind of math/science project going on involving rollercoaster calculations and one teen has asked to use my scroll saw.
WHAT?
Andrew's View of the Week 