Today's post is inspired by Mistakes and Thrills' post on Firsts. I'm not going to do exactly the same thing, mainly because there are certain Firsts that I do not care to discuss on this blog.... as much as I am open with my friends and family, sometimes it is better that they don't know EVERYTHING about me!
It is more about the memories that her post inspired; one memory in particular that I have spent the past few minutes laughing about.
It was 1998, the year my parents discovered I smoked. I was 17 or 18, in my first year at UCT. I'd been sort of social smoking when out drinking for about 6 months before uni, but at that stage I was still doing the Drag-Puff, where one sucks on the cigarette and exhales Bob Marley-style clouds of smoke without first inhaling anything. It's the teenage shoutout to rebellion: I am so damn cool right now, but I don't actually know what the fuck I'm doing. Anyway, by the time they found out, I was smoking properly. Camel Filters, no less. Yes, I know. My teeth and fingertips contracted jaundice later on, forcing me to change to a lighter brand. The momentous occasion came when I was walking up my driveway, and unbeknownst to me, my bag was open. The incriminating evidence spilled all over the tarmac - a poisonous yellow box and its radioactive contents, confessing to the world that the eldest angel child was on the fast track to hell. Or at the very least, lung cancer.
I will never forget my dad's face as he arrived home that night; pushing open the backyard gate with his shoulder, both hands gingerly cupping the fags as if they might explode and release toxins at any moment. I was in the lounge, and as I looked up to see him enter, my stomach dropped to my suddenly clammy toes. He had to cross the patio to come inside to where I was sitting - I had exactly 2.45 seconds to come up with a story.
He enters the lounge; I am staring at him the way I'd rivet my gaze to the gory bits on Rescue 911. I want to break eye contact, but his barely concealed rage just dares me to. Just try it. "Lopz," he says in that quiet, controlled voice that parents use when they are about to strip their moer, but want to do the right thing by giving you a chance to defend yourself first - so as not to land up in Parent Prison or reported to Child Welfare. No-one is denying him the bitter satisfaction of this moment. "Lopz," again with the quiet, deadly voice. "I found these strewn across the driveway. Can you explain how they got there?"
I am sitting on my shaking hands, hoping desperately that he can't see the beads of sweat lining my upper lip, or hear the thundering of my heartbeat. I frown in apparent puzzlement, and do the only thing a girl can do when cornered. I give up my best friend as the sacrificial lamb. "I'm not sure Dad. They could be Schmokkle's, I guess; she asked me to keep them in my bag for her last night. I must have forgotten to give them back to her."
The next few seconds last an age. Father and daughter face each other across a chasm of doubt and mistrust. He is not stupid, but he has no proof to dispute her story. She has newly developed wiles, but still has enough innocence to have a decent shot at acquittal. After an era of electric silence, he says the next words in the manner of someone who has been beaten on a technicality - an unfair and probably unjust end to the case: " Well, see that you give them back to her and don't ever bring these things into the house again. And you'd better not be smoking yourself."
I know enough not to exhale in relief - nothing says I'm Guilty like that post-apocolyptic sigh. " I won't Dad. And I'm not. I promise." These last two words slip out inadvertently - its my way of trying to prove I'm still Daddy's Little Girl. What I couldn't comprehend back then, but which I am savvy to now, is that when a teenager says " I Promise", it's the same as saying "Of course I'll wait til marriage" or "I won't be late." Whether they mean it at the time or not, these two little words are the greatest lie a teenager ever tells. Promises are like rules: made to be broken, but there to make your parents believe you're essentially still a good kid. As Chandler would say, Yuh-huh!!!
I have never asked my parents if they believed me that day. I'm pretty sure they didn't - I know I wouldn't have if I was in their shoes. When we eventually did discuss my smoking years later, they always made sure I understood their vehement opposition to it, even as they did their best not to judge me for essentially being a dumbass. But they were the first people I told when I quit, and they were the ones with the biggest smiles.
It is more about the memories that her post inspired; one memory in particular that I have spent the past few minutes laughing about.
It was 1998, the year my parents discovered I smoked. I was 17 or 18, in my first year at UCT. I'd been sort of social smoking when out drinking for about 6 months before uni, but at that stage I was still doing the Drag-Puff, where one sucks on the cigarette and exhales Bob Marley-style clouds of smoke without first inhaling anything. It's the teenage shoutout to rebellion: I am so damn cool right now, but I don't actually know what the fuck I'm doing. Anyway, by the time they found out, I was smoking properly. Camel Filters, no less. Yes, I know. My teeth and fingertips contracted jaundice later on, forcing me to change to a lighter brand. The momentous occasion came when I was walking up my driveway, and unbeknownst to me, my bag was open. The incriminating evidence spilled all over the tarmac - a poisonous yellow box and its radioactive contents, confessing to the world that the eldest angel child was on the fast track to hell. Or at the very least, lung cancer.
I will never forget my dad's face as he arrived home that night; pushing open the backyard gate with his shoulder, both hands gingerly cupping the fags as if they might explode and release toxins at any moment. I was in the lounge, and as I looked up to see him enter, my stomach dropped to my suddenly clammy toes. He had to cross the patio to come inside to where I was sitting - I had exactly 2.45 seconds to come up with a story.
He enters the lounge; I am staring at him the way I'd rivet my gaze to the gory bits on Rescue 911. I want to break eye contact, but his barely concealed rage just dares me to. Just try it. "Lopz," he says in that quiet, controlled voice that parents use when they are about to strip their moer, but want to do the right thing by giving you a chance to defend yourself first - so as not to land up in Parent Prison or reported to Child Welfare. No-one is denying him the bitter satisfaction of this moment. "Lopz," again with the quiet, deadly voice. "I found these strewn across the driveway. Can you explain how they got there?"
I am sitting on my shaking hands, hoping desperately that he can't see the beads of sweat lining my upper lip, or hear the thundering of my heartbeat. I frown in apparent puzzlement, and do the only thing a girl can do when cornered. I give up my best friend as the sacrificial lamb. "I'm not sure Dad. They could be Schmokkle's, I guess; she asked me to keep them in my bag for her last night. I must have forgotten to give them back to her."
The next few seconds last an age. Father and daughter face each other across a chasm of doubt and mistrust. He is not stupid, but he has no proof to dispute her story. She has newly developed wiles, but still has enough innocence to have a decent shot at acquittal. After an era of electric silence, he says the next words in the manner of someone who has been beaten on a technicality - an unfair and probably unjust end to the case: " Well, see that you give them back to her and don't ever bring these things into the house again. And you'd better not be smoking yourself."
I know enough not to exhale in relief - nothing says I'm Guilty like that post-apocolyptic sigh. " I won't Dad. And I'm not. I promise." These last two words slip out inadvertently - its my way of trying to prove I'm still Daddy's Little Girl. What I couldn't comprehend back then, but which I am savvy to now, is that when a teenager says " I Promise", it's the same as saying "Of course I'll wait til marriage" or "I won't be late." Whether they mean it at the time or not, these two little words are the greatest lie a teenager ever tells. Promises are like rules: made to be broken, but there to make your parents believe you're essentially still a good kid. As Chandler would say, Yuh-huh!!!
I have never asked my parents if they believed me that day. I'm pretty sure they didn't - I know I wouldn't have if I was in their shoes. When we eventually did discuss my smoking years later, they always made sure I understood their vehement opposition to it, even as they did their best not to judge me for essentially being a dumbass. But they were the first people I told when I quit, and they were the ones with the biggest smiles.
7 comments:
Amazing what we think we can get away with. What we THINK we get away with. In our minds, it's brilliant thinking our parents would never cotton on.
We forget they've probably done it all themselves and used the same excuses on their parents!! Hahaha!!
its thanks to little stories like these that I gained my sterling reputation with your parents!
Great post - sent me on a trip down my own memory lane lined with little lies to my parents ..heehee.. aaaahh, to be young and dumb again.
i promised my mom when i was 5 i would never smoke... well never get that type of promise from a 5 yr old :)
camel filters? sheesh! good for you for quitting!! i'm on 8 a day, getting there!
@Blondie - Exactly. As an adult, you look back on your greatest schemes and see just how transparent they were. Yet as a teenager, you are utterly convinced of your own superiority. It's no wonder they call it the generation gap!
@Anice - erm.... what can I say? You are right of course. There ain't no bitch like a teenage bitch. If it's any comfort, over the course of the next three years, you were fully absolved of all responsibility as my parents made the unfortunate discovery that I was my very own worst influence!
@Brazen - share the stories!
@Sweets - I vowed never to be that most insidious of specimans, The Ex Smoker. So I will say nothing except good luck, you can do it!
Yes Lopz. You definitely can't.
I don't even ever want to ask my parents if they believe me cause then I'd have to tell them all the stuff I DID get up too.
They know a fair amount but not it all.
I was tres naughty.
my baby sister bust me to my folks because she was pissed at me for busting her for eating my valentines chocolates!
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