Luckiest Mom Ever

My son has a gift for send-ups and satire, for which he has earned the nickname General Sarcasmo. Although he has been practicing the art through all of his childhood, lately he has surpassed himself, as his humor has been seasoned by that special kind of cynical idealism that adolescents are known for.

For example, last night he spoke in a Minnie Mouse style falsetto while imitating me: “14,000 people have died in car accidents since George Bush has been President. Coincidence? I think not.” (Please note that I speak in a tobacco-tinged alto. I point this out to him with every imitation, and although he concedes, he always makes me sound like Minnie.)

He tells me blogging is for socially retarded nerds.

I do manage to embarrass him on the regular, although we’ve worked out some compromises. He won’t complain about me listening to hip-hop – as long as his friends aren’t in the car. And he enjoys discussing the evolution and compositional motifs of classic rock , so we have long debates about topics such as what was Brian Wilson’s best song. His absolute favorite band is the Who, so not only does he own just about everything they’ve ever recorded, but he naturally reads bios and liner note and blogs. (Why is a blog suddenly cooler when Pete Townsend is writing it? Nevermind, stupid question.)

This is how he discovered one of my most trite and useless things (because it isn’t even a skill). I can usually identify a song in about 3 bars. So although I’m not permitted to sing along with the radio, I am encouraged to shout out the title of each and every song during its intro.

(Excuse me. Say the title – must not shout it. It seems that years of working in nightclubs have damaged my hearing and now everything I say is just so loud.)

I enjoy this game , however, because this is about the only thing I do that he doesn’t find dorky/ nerdy or just plain wrong.

Unless he does something really clumsy such as slicing his hand open on a can of cat food and suddenly he needs me to clean up the blood with bactrine, bandages and love.

So I am still necessary.

And the poor kid is going to be soooo embarrassed when he reads this.