A Chimp is loose in the House

There really isn't a good way to describe the fear that permeates a parent when one of his children approaches driving age.  Jenn and Jordan passed through the early driving years without much trouble.  Both had been reasonably sane children and teenagers.  Both made great grades, though Jordan worked like a dog and Jenn merely attended class.  They were my girls, and when I gave each a set of car keys, I was confident they would come home safe and sound.  They made good choices.  They were confident, cautious drivers, who stopped, looked and listened, I thought.  I was content to think that because it kept me from being fearful.  I had confidence in the girls.

Now we have "the boy".  Having a small boy is a lot like having a chimpanzee loose in the house.  He's 16 now, and in New Jersey, that's when you get to start learning to drive.  Hell, I got my first ticket (45mph in a 20mph zone) on my 16th Birthday.  While the girls were relatively calm and thoughtful, the boy, when he was about 5 and having to take some horrible tasting medicine, thought it was a good idea to jump up and down and spin in a circle while throwing up.  Only in the mind of a 5 year old boy does that seem like a good idea.   This is the same boy who once told me that our labrador retriever, Buckwheat, had put poop in his diaper.  He also used to tell people that Buck was his brother.  I found him sitting on the banister at the bottom of the stairs and he told me he flew up there.  He flew down.  About a month after 9/11, he called 911 to report a dead soldier in our basement.  G.I. Joe's head had popped off.  The police department's response time in South Plainfield for calls like that is about 90 seconds.  Cops with guns drawn.  At 3 he tried to order the Phonics game because he did not feel he was reading at his grade level.  We had to explain to him that he didn't have a grade level.  In the 2nd grade, at the Spring teachers conference his teacher told us how helpful he was in explaining all the Jewish holidays to everyone because while there were numerous Muslim, Christian, and Hindu kids in the class, he was the only Jewish kid.  We told the teacher that he wasn't Jewish, but Episcopal, and having heard him explain baseball to a friend, I was fairly confident he had mangled the Jewish Holidays just like he mangled the game of baseball.

So now, my chimpanze has grown into a young man.  He's one of the 'hosses' of the swim team.  He lifts weights three times a week.  He plays indoor soccer twice a week, and is on the Honor Roll.  This time last year, he only knew foods, numbers and colors in Spanish, but now he can converse in it.  I look at him, and I remember getting dad's LTD stuck on the gravel road that runs beside Quail Hollow.  When he laughs, I remember when I got mom's Oldsmobile VistaCruser stuck on a muddy road off the By-Pass.  When he and his posse play pool and listen to music in the basement, I remember doing the same, but holy cow, they have some horrible taste in music!  Where we had the Stones, Creedence, Cream, Clapton and the like, they have...rap.  Is that even music?

So, now I'm going to cough up some keys.  16 years sure went by quickly.  His mother went into labor on Superbowl sunday in 1997 as the game was about to begin.  That game ended at about 10:00 or so, and we went to the hospital.  Roughly 20 hours later, a whole new game started.  It's been a good game so far.  The boy is becoming a young man.  He's a lot better at figuring things out than I was at his age, and given the profound lack of gravel roads up here, I am very worried about where he is going to get my Expedition stuck.