Learn From Your Teenager

  • 6 alarm clocks will wake everyone in the house except a teenager.
  • 1 glass of ice water will.
  • No alarm clock is necessary for dates or concerts.
  • Music is meant to be shared with neighbors two blocks away.
  • Don’t play it backwards.
  • Expect a knock at the door with a summons to court.
  • Never start your car before the radio is turned OFF.
  • Speedometers are to test the car and see if they really go that fast.
  • Mine goes 140MPH on the straight away.
  • Teenager’s cars go faster.
  • Tires are there to leave little black marks when you peel out.
  • The bigger the black mark, the better the car.
  • A car will hold 16 people with the tailgate open.
  • More if you add one to the hood and one to the roof.
  • A car will run on fumes long enough to back out of the driveway.
  • Walking to the gas station is good exercise for you.
  • Being late for work is not good for you.
  • Teenagers are allergic to walking.
  • A clean room means a path from the door to the bed.
  • A bedroom can be cleaned in five minutes flat if they throw everything into the trash.
  • Including dirty laundry and dirty dishes.
  • The phone is always in use.
  • Extra phone lines don’t help.
  • Voice mail does. (At least you know which calls you’ve missed)
  • Teenagers want to know what calls they’ve missed, too.
  • Kool-aid is for coloring hair.
  • Trousers should be worn several sizes too big and low enough for at least 6″ of underwear to show.
  • Only one half of a wallet is for money.
  • The other half is for status symbols.
  • Condoms are status symbols.
  • The most abhorred 4 letter word is WORK! (houseWORK and homeWORK)
  • The second worst 4 letter word is HOME.
  • Windows are more useful as doors.
  • The knock at the window is always answered by a teenager.
  • The knock at the door is always an adult.
  • Police come in all shapes and sizes.
  • 3 work days a month are school holidays.
  • The house will always be redecorated when you come home from work.
  • All walls should have a window.
  • Windows are easily made with fists.
  • Violation tickets come in all shapes, colors and sizes.
  • No, all the blue tickets are not curfew violations and all the yellow tickets are not noise violations, that doesn’t even include the pink or the green ones.
  • Remove all lethal weapons from your home.
  • Schools consider paring knives lethal weapons.
  • A plastic knife will not slice butter without breaking.
  • Every parent of a teenager can add much to this list. That’s a double dog dare!!!! (If they still use that term)

Teenagers and Cats

For all of you with teenagers or who had teenagers, you may want to know why they really have a lot in common with cats:

  • Neither teenagers nor cats turn their heads when you call them by name.
  • No matter what you do for them, it is not enough. Indeed, all humane efforts are barely adequate to compensate for the privilege of waiting on them hand and foot.
  • You rarely see a cat walking outside of the house with an adult human being, and it can be safely said that no teenager in his or her right mind wants to be seen in public with his or her parents.
  • Even if you tell jokes as well as Jay Leno, neither your cat nor you teen will ever crack a smile.
  • No cat or teenager shares you taste in music.
  • Cats and teenagers can lie on the living-room sofa for hours on end without moving, barely breathing.
  • Cats have nine lives. Teenagers carry on as if they did.
  • Cats and teenagers yawn in exactly the same manner, communicating that ultimate human ecstasy — a sense of complete and utter boredom.
  • Cats and teenagers do not improve anyone’s furniture.
  • Cats that are free to roam outside sometimes have been known to return in the middle of the night to deposit a dead animal in your bedroom. Teenagers are not above that sort of behavior.

Thus, if you must raise teenagers, the best sources of advice are not other parents, but veterinarians. It is also a good idea to keep a guidebook on cats at hand at all times.

And remember, above all else, put out the food and do not make any sudden moves in their direction. When they make up their minds, they will finally come to you for some affection and comfort, and it will be a triumphant moment for all concerned.

All I Need to Know I Learned From My Teenager

  • I’m not as smart as I thought I was
  • Only other parents are cool
  • Gray hair is inherited from our children
  • I don’t understand anything
  • You can never have enough nachos, pizza, and soda in the house
  • Some 4-letter words are hard to speak at home (love, work, help) and other’s aren’t
  • Toddlers step on your toes, teens step on your heart
  • I can’t cook
  • Rules are meant to be broken
  • You can’t make someone do something they don’t want to do
  • Stress is not for adults only
  • A clean room is an oxymoron
  • Friends come first
  • Dinner together is a “foreign” meal
  • Live for today
  • Never take *NO* for an answer
  • Clothes hangers look better on the floor – next to what they were intended to hang
  • Video game strategy can be recited in detail, but don’t ask about homework
  • You’re *amned if you do and you’re *amned if you don’t