zoeinbrussels by Happy ‘punk’

Todd and his Mohawk looking happy. I bumped into Tatiana in the supermarket and she told me that he has gone to Poland for a week to be with his girlfriend. Now I know how his dad copes with the boy – I certainly can’t.

There again, I wouldn’t part with my money for Todd to go on holiday, he doesn’t deserve it.

He’s lovely to photograph though.

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This is Todd’s latest temper tantrum – he threw it at the door from the bathroom because I wouldn’t give him €10 to pay back a friend.

The loo does, at least, smell nice now.

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Hello? Why is Todd’s duvet and pillows on my bed?

Hello? Why is my king-size duvet and pillows on Todd’s two beds?

Hello? Why are there a couple of ‘things’ from my Box of Tricks that I keep hidden under my bed, in Todd’s room?

I stripped off all the sheets and shall be washing them at an extremely high wash and will be disinfecting my Toys for the next week; god only knows what Todd has done with them. This comes as a bit of a shock as I would never have thought that Todd would use my bed linen, let alone anything else.

There again, he did come flying downstairs last week wearing nothing but a very, very small towel while his girlfriend was upstairs, begging for a condom. Fortunately, a friend had a condom that was just within the sell-by-date in his wallet and the evening was obviously saved. For Todd.

I picked up the empty beer bottles that were strewn around the lawn, threw them out and left, wondering how to tackle Todd about using my house as a hotel. But I think I have other issues to think about now as I have just found out something else about Todd.

He has a Mohican hair-cut.

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A rather young-looking policeman just popped by for a signature on the declaration I made about Todd several weeks back when the idiot bought a stolen scooter and got stopped by the police. The boy now has to go to court and once again I asked the policeman when that would be.

“Oh, not for a long time.”
“That’s what I expected seeing as I have to go back to court in 2012 for something really stupid.”
“I know,” went on the policeman, “I was once flashed by the police and the court case took forever – it’s Belgium, isn’t it?”

A policeman with a sense of humour is a hard find, but tonight I found one.

It’s a shame that he looked about 20 years younger than me.

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The one thing that hasn’t appeared to change in the unique case of my teenage son is the ability to think. He is extremely clever at managing his life so that he gets out of mowing the lawn week after week by simply vanishing to stay with his girlfriend who lives in the boondoks and missing two train connections home, or by bringing home a crate of beer and a bunch of friends.

On Friday, Todd came home with a couple of friends – and the mandatory crate of beer – and sat outside for a while swigging back a couple of bottles each. They then miraculously disappeared without sound or mention, only to reappear several hours later with more friends and more beer.

I had decided to go to bed early that night as I was suffering a killer of a migraine but was woken up at around midnight by Todd and yet another couple of friends ringing the doorbell. They then settled down to eat some hamburgers and drink more beer. After a while I heard Todd go to bed – with his friends and they only shut up when I swore at them loudly – I wasn’t feeling well and wanted to sleep.

It appeared that I wasn’t the only one feeling ill as the next thing I heard was someone retching in Todd’s bedroom. Todd was then fishing around in the cupboard in the bathroom looking for a towel. I asked him if his friend had thrown up over the floor.
“No Mama, he’s being sick out of the window.”
“Did he not think to use the toilet which is just here?”
Todd looked at me as if I had said something quite intelligent and then slowly backed into his bedroom with a silly grin on his face.

The house looked a tip the next morning although I managed to get Todd to tidy it up to the best of his capabilities before he disappeared into thin air to avoid mowing the lawn. As I gazed out of one of the kitchen windows I saw the window sill was splattered with remnants of someone’s food.

I hope you wished your mother a Happy Mother’s Day – I bet she deserves it.

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I called him downstairs and asked him why I had to go to the police station.

“Sit down, Mama,” said Todd, as he sat down himself looking rather shifty.
“It’s OK, Todd, I’ll stand.”
“Well, I bought this scooter from a friend called Bryan. He was selling it for €70 but I only had €35 so he let me buy it.”
“A scooter? Your dad will go ape-shit.”
“No, Mama, it doesn’t go fast enough so Bryan told me that I didn’t need a license – ”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. Anyway, I was riding it and Thomas was on the back – I was wearing a helmet, he wasn’t and was rather drunk and the police stopped me.”
“Why?”
“Well, I was putting the light on and they took me in and told me that the scooter had been stolen.”
“Stolen? You bought a stolen scooter? Have you any idea what your dad is going to say?”
“Ummmm, I’ll have to pay a fine – ”
“Where is this bloody scooter?”
“At the police station.”
“Fine, best place for it. I won’t tell your dad – that’s up to you. You drink, go clubbing and so I consider you adult-enough to face the consequences. Welcome to the Real World, Todd.”

Todd looked at me warily as if he wanted to ask “is that it?” but to be quite honest, he’s 16 and 16 year-old boys do things like that and he’ll just have to learn the hard way. He’s terrified of having to pay a fine though – he’s rather fond of his pocket money.

And so that’s where I was yesterday, sitting in the new police station trying to keep my eyes off the policeman’s handcuffs which would make a beautiful addition to my bedroom and talking about Todd’s idiotic behaviour. The worst part is the fact that Todd had bought a stolen scooter, and this will go down on his ‘criminal register’. The stupid part of it all is that Todd has to go to court to find out what his fine will be, and that won’t be for a long time if it’s anything like my own experience.

Fortunately, the policeman and I agreed that Community Service is the best punishment as, he said, in most cases, the parents pay the fine. Although I would never pay the fine for Todd, I really believe that Community Service would teach him a better lesson than a quickly paid-off fine.

But thanks to a certain volcano, Todd didn’t have to tell his father who was stuck in Costa Rica, and is now at school for the week, and this weekend Todd comes back home to me. The boy owes me Big Time – I thought I was fairly relaxed about it all.

Too bad the lawn really needs mowing, Todd.

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The Twat, on the other hand, was responsible for my son having his arse signed by the female guitarist of The dIPLOMATS – the singer of which used to be Todd’s English teacher.  I don’t doubt that his former teacher missed that.

Mmmmm.

Perhaps I should go fishing more often.

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The eerie thing about it all was that the man had already been charged on another occasion for the same thing but obviously, nothing had been done about it.  Todd doesn’t like talking about it, but I think that he has got over it after gloating that he got the ‘pretty police woman’s card’ and he missed biology.

It’s quite a refreshing way of looking at life – “How was it at the dentist?” – “I didn’t make it as I was giving a statement.”

I must try that one day.

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Ok, I wanted to piss Todd off for no real reason whatsoever apart from the fact that he hadn’t come home the night before.

Tony called me to see if I was still going and I finally found a top, some jeans and yes, my kitten-heels that I have never worn before, but are so comfortable. That is not what my body is telling me two days later as dancing in shoes with heels that look more like spikes is Not A Good Idea.

Tony and I arrived at our local that was in full swing, grabbed a beer and searched for anyone that we knew. I spotted Todd at a table talking to a very pretty girl and her dad – it turned out that she goes to the same school as Todd. Todd and I were soon dancing together although he was making some rather suggestive moves during “Billy Jean” that I thought inappropriate when so close to me (due to the small dance floor – he didn’t do it on purpose) that I stepped back. One of my heels made contact with a man’s foot and I saw him limp away whilst glaring at me furiously.

We danced for hours which was good as I switched to orange juice so as to be able to stay upright in my spikes.

Somebody, however, was very impressed with Todd’s dancing and he and his wife were applauding him – and buying the boy beer. Well, he’s 16 and I couldn’t really say no. It turned out that the man, who Tony has known for years, works at one of the Flemish TV stations and was suggesting all sorts of things to Todd, such as hiring him as a dancer at parties etc. It all seemed very respectful.

The man drove his wife home but came back and carried on talking to Todd, right next to Tony and me. I noticed the beers had switched to Barcardi and coke, but Todd was still fine. I guess he has hollow legs. At one point I was asked to dance by some jerk who obviously thought he was far too good-looking for anyone else and offered to buy me an orange juice. I sat down with his friend and 15 year-old god-daughter who made it very clear that she couldn’t stand the man.

We got chatting and at one moment I had to pee so went off to the toilets. I chuckled to myself as I passed the men’s urinals only to see that the jerk had followed me in. But Tony was standing right next to him. If he hadn’t been having a wizz I’d have kissed Tony for being such a silent but excellent body-guard.

We carried on dancing until the early hours of the morning and finally Todd and I left with Tony. We saw the man from TV pull out in his camper-van and then Todd confessed to Tony that the man had tried to get it on with him. It was pretty harmless, just a stroke of the thigh, but enough to wake Todd up. The man had also offered to let Todd sleep in his camper-van…..

I felt shocked. I was never far away from Todd – the bar is too small, and Tony has eyes and ears in the back of his head. It was obvious that Todd wanted to talk to Tony so I let him carry on, and Tony gave him advice which I think made Todd feel better. The man in question also gave Todd a visiting card but on reflection, it didn’t say much about the well-known Flemish TV channel.

I should have gone to the police then, but Todd didn’t want to. He finally told his dad last night who will definitely go to the police, but as the parent who was there, I think that they may want a statement from me. I have no idea what to say as I am racked with guilt – but then no one else saw anything either.

Screw parenting manuals – all you need to do as a parent is to be there for them.

But sometimes not even that is enough.

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