That Driving Beat

The weekend started with Dad arriving safely, on his way back north after six weeks or so in Florida. There also occurred a driver’s test, a time change, and what would a weekend be without The Boy throwing multiple TB errors?

Daughter Dearest had an appointment for her driver’s test early Saturday afternoon. The Boy invited himself along, because he was supposed to surrender his driver’s license and get a picture ID, so that was fine. The DMV facility tends to be crowded on weekends, with long waits — fortunately, the appointment held up and Daughter Dearest did her thing: and passed. Barely. The Boy was waiting impatiently for his number; he was starting to make noises about leaving while DD was still taking her test. But shortly after that, about the time she finished and went in, his number came up and he went in too.

Daughter Dearest came out, waving her new license and grinning (naturally). A few minutes later, The Boy came out with a similar grin. “They said my license isn’t suspended!” (Like Solar, I suspect that a clerical error has occurred and will eventually get fixed.)

I dropped The Boy off at Ryan’s, where he met up with Mrs. Fetched and her parents — he was still hungry after lunch, because he hadn’t eaten Friday night. Daughter Dearest wanted to try out her wings when we got home, offering to go to Home Despot to get a bag of potting soil for me (that the boyfriend was working there had zippo to do with it, I’m sure). No problem, as far as I was concerned, although Mrs. Fetched was quick to inform me that DD needs to be re-attached to our insurance now that she has a “real” license — they met up at Home Despot, as her mom wanted some flowers and other necessities.

The Boy’s demeanor, which had been marginal up to now, went to hell in a handbasket — probably because he figured that with a non-suspended license, he no longer needed us to drive him around. Yesterday afteroon, he started badgering Mrs. Fetched to let him use “his” car to visit his usual friends. He agreed to be back by 7:30, and naturally a TB03 came up — he called and asked for an extension to 10 so he could take a friend home, then Mrs. Fetched called him around 11 and hold him to be home in 15 minutes OR ELSE. He made it.

As soon as he was home, he and Mrs. Fetched got into it (it was 11:30 p.m. by now) and a TB09 came up. He decided that he had to move out right away (TB01) and demanded a phone. We said no and he went into Badger Mode. I matched him.

“I need a phone.”
“Shut up.”
“I need a phone.”
“Shut up.”
“I need a phone.”
“Shut up.”

After a few rounds of that, he (to my surprise) cracked fairly quickly and made the mistake of asking why.

“Because you haven’t done even the smallest of the things we told you were the conditions for living here — why should we give you anything?”

“Why are you trying to change me?”

“Well… you need to change. You’ve screwed up your whole life trying to do it your way.”

That went over like a lead balloon. Surprisingly, there were no TB04 errors. But Mrs. Fetched could have saved me some trouble had she told me he was supposed to stay at her parents’ place — the Evil Twins had come for an overnight (their dad had therapy in Atlanta) and were in his room. I told him he could use the phone down there for all I cared, and go wherever he wanted from there. He began to object and suddenly changed his mind.

On the way down, he told me to “not come looking for him.” Fine — I figure we can catch him at the jail sooner or later if we get the urge.

He lasted here two days longer than I expected. But as far as I’m concerned, he can stay away until he starts straightening his life out himself. We can’t help him until he’s ready to help himself.