Something unremarkable happened today.

rug

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Thu May-26-11 05:15 PM
Original message

Something unremarkable happened today.

My son, who is 16, got off the bus and told me he had a date tomorrow with a girl from school. They're going to see Pirates of the Carbbean tomorrow and he's trying to figure out how to get there.

Transportation aside, I was glad to hear it because his girlfriend of five weeks, his first girlfriend ever, broke up with him about a month ago. He said he got hit with the big three all in the same conversation. 1) "My feelings changed." 2) "It's not you it's me." and 3)"We can still be friends." I told him 1) She's an idiot, 2) She's right, and 3) Why do you want to be friends with an idiot? Despite my advice, he seemed to handle ir better than I would have.

So I was glad of the news. He said she was a cheerleader :woohoo: who's in his chemistry class. He said she started flirting with him on Monday by passing him a note saying she liked him. (I'm glad texting has not destroyed the classic crafts of high school flirting.) Today he passed her a note saying "if you send me notes saying you like me, aren't you supposed to give me your number?" She passed him back a note saying, "are you asking for my number?" And so on.

By the end of the class they made the date.

He doesn't have his license yet but she does. She told him she's not sure her mother trusts her to drive alone, license or no license. This is rural Pennsylvania and he needs a car to have his date. I said she could use my Jeep. He reminded me of the coffee cups, cigarette butts and unspecified trash on the floor and said "no thanks". I am now Plan B if she can't get a car. I'l drive them in my wife's van, which is significantly cleaner.

He showed me her facebook page and pointed out with chagrin one of her friends who rides his bus. He told her on the way home and she said "What does she see in you?" I told him she's probably jealous. His date seems like a typical young woman that, for the moment, holds my awkward, vulnerable, adolescent son's heart in her hands. He told me what he knew about her. While we were looking at her facebook page he commented on her cheerleading outfit but not once on the fact that her background was AfricanAmerican. Just that she was a cheerleader and he had to figure out a way to get to the movies. Which is as it should be.

After he told me his news, I thought back to when I was in high school and all the crap that was going on then. All the loud arguments about if we should date a black girl or a Puerto Rican girl sound now like muffled shouts from the bottom of a well. I thought back earlier to grammar school, when some parents, mothers most often, odd as it seems, told us not to go around the corner to play with the Italian kids because we were Irish. It's like shadows now.

Enjoy your date, Luke. Get lucky if you can.

I'm glad you find unremarkable something that so many of my friends and I found remarkable.