J
October 19, 2012
English 1101
C
What do they know? What do parents know about having fun and being immature? Do they really know what it is like to want to have fun as a teenager in a small town? Maybe making a few mistakes when you think one of your parents are not looking can prove that some parents are actually teenagers in their own soul. I was raised in a small town in Wisconsin of around 2,000 people. I grew up out in the country about ten miles out of town where there is nothing around besides woods and corn fields. When friends would come over all there was to do was raise some hell, and see if we could get away with it, and raising hell is what we did best. My parents were hard workers. My father worked at a factory and my mom as a hair stylist. They were strict parents to an extent. They were the kind of parents that raised me to respect my elders, and if I did wrong I knew there was going to be a punishment. Punishments usually never crossed my mind though, because of course you have to get caught doing wrong to get punished. Which I never thought I would, and sometimes I would not get caught. Until the summer I thought my friends and I got away with the best party of all time. My parents never would leave town for a weekend, and on the rare occasions that they did I would not be left the house to myself. I would be stuck staying at a friend’s house until they got back. Except for some reason in summer of 2004 my parents came up to me on a Monday and told me that they would be taking vacation for the weekend and I would have the house to myself. At that very moment I was almost in shock. I could not really say anything. They began to explain rules for when they were gone. Like feed the dog, keep the house clean, cut the grass, water the flowers, basic odds and ends. While they were explaining all of this it was hard to concentrate because I’ve never had the house to myself for a weekend. Light bulbs were sparking in my head, and my parents could see it in my eyes. That is when they then said “Josh you can have a friend over, but no parties”. My heart stopped for a moment. How did they know that is what I was thinking? I came back with the quick response “why would I have a party?” They just laughed and said “you know better”. Later that night I went to my room and thought about what my parents had told me. I know my parents had said no parties, but what is a 16 year old kid supposed to do with a house to himself. In my mind I knew that if I throw a party and get caught there was going to be consequences. Then I thought to myself. How will they even know? They probably never partied at all when they were younger. So I went on with my plan and called a few friends and explained the situation of my parents leaving town for the weekend, and made sure that they kept it on the down low, so people’s parents or the cops did not find out. The next day at school all the kids at school were looking at me because they knew what was going on. It was almost as if I was a king and people wanted to know me. The party started slowly early on a Friday night. At first not many people were at my house. Which in a way I was almost relieved because I knew there would not be much to clean up. The slow party only lasted for an hour or so. All of a sudden cars and trucks started to pull in non-stop. There were people from my school, schools around the area, and even people I never seen in my life. I was nervous that something was going to get broken inside my parents’ house. In a way I wished I would never have had a party and would have just stayed at a friend’s house as I did in the past when my parents would leave town for the weekend. These thoughts rushed my mind like a tornado ripping through a town, but I did not want to disappoint everyone. I kept my mouth shut and had everyone go outside for a bon fire. I brought a boom box outside, set up lights, set up tables for party games, and continued the party. I continued the party until the early hours of morning. Everyone stayed over at my house that night and the party seemed to be a success. When I woke the next day I knew there was going to be a mess to clean up, but the mess exceeded my expectations. I went outside and it looked as if it snowed in July. There were cigarette butts laying all over in the yard. The yard was ripped up in places from people running around. It was a disaster area and my stomach dropped because I knew I was going to be in trouble. I began to rake up the yard of all the cigarette butts. I filled in divots of grass ripped up. I tried to make everything look as natural as an even better than when my parents left for the weekend. I still felt guilty and knew I was going to get caught. When my parents got home on Sunday they asked me how the weekend was and I just told them that it was good. They continued to ask normal questions that any parent would ask their child, but to me it felt as if I was in an interrogation session. I was nervous but they did not seem to break me. It took a few days and in my mind I felt I got away with everything scotch free. Until I got home from a friend’s house and my dad was in the yard where I had the party and he knew something had went on. I felt as if I was walking up to the electric chair. I knew that I was busted. He asked me “Josh was there people over this weekend” I said “yes”. He just stood there and kind of shook his head and explained to me about being responsible and following rules. He also went on to explain that he partied when he was younger and how if something had went bad the house could have been taken away.
I never got punished that day. I learned that from my father’s experiences in life as a teenager he could teach me a lesson. After that weekend if my parents went out of town for the weekend they would leave me home alone. They trusted me and I realized that maybe they were not as old and strict as I always thought they were.