A Swarm of Locusts

Ok, so last night, the teenager had several friends over. Little did I know they ALL would be spending the night! I see the teenager head into his room about 1:30 a.m. I go in and check on him and ask, "Are they all staying over?" "Yea." About that time, four other teenagers pass me and transcend down the stairs to the kitchen and I begin to smell things cooking and hear things falling. They crack me up. As we are so fond of saying here "Micasa sucasa" and they know it. They all know what I keep in the pantry, where the frozen waffles are, tuna fish, PB&J, leftovers etc. and they're not shy about cooking either.

And so, when I go down to close up, they're all seated around the kitchen table (mind you MY kids are asleep!). Now remember, I have been making these boxes, and so all my supplies were laid out on the table. The pretty paper I had just purchased has been moved to another location (not a good one, I might add) and there are four kids eating on top of all my supplies. Cringe. I just gently started moving stuff around them to higher ground. When one kid dropped a fork (which he was using with WAFFLES and SYRUP), I couldn't help but close my eyes. I didn't even want to see that long string of syrup all over my paper and boxes and paints. I swear, they're all so gawky and clumsy at this age.

I left them on their own and proceeded upstairs, I couldn't stand to watch. When I returned to survey the damage a half an hour later, there wasn't any, of course. They had rinsed all their plates in the sink and cleaned up after themselves, mostly. I looked intently to see where that fork had fallen and to find any sticky residue, but there wasn't any. He had cleaned that up too. Nothing had been damaged and everything was as if they hadn't even been there.

I have to admit, it's nice having the swarm here,. I would much rather have them all be here than out on the streets doing things they shouldn't be. They all know they're welcome any time; and our house is always open, day or night. I grew up in a house like that. My parents were always very lenient on visitors also. Many of our friends felt more at home at our house than their own. It may not have been as fancy, or as clean as theirs, but it was always welcoming. I'm glad my parents instilled that openness of our homes into all of us children.

Ok, with all that being said, here's the teenager's room that only a couple of weeks ago was so neat and clean--GASP! There were bodies everywhere last night. These are the leftover scragglers. I have no idea where my teenager is--oh yea, in the shower. Four showers later. Do you think any hot water is left for me? I don't think so. Oh well, such is life. As the kids today say, "It's all good."