A Crisis

For the past three or so hours I had been heavily occupied with washing my lovely little green truck. It is certain that there is no car in the world loved more. My arms were covered from elbow to fingertip with brake dust, grime, and soap, but I had that happy aura about me that can only be brought about by seeing the beautiful product of your own manual labor. The sky was as blue as the Caribbean and the air as pleasant on the skin as silken bedsheets. Add in a quiet breeze every now and again and some dazzling sunshine, and you have the equivalent of what I was experiencing as I gazed at my now spotless car. Who knew that on this utopia of a day, soon, I'd have to be a a horrible jerk.

After admiring such a lovely days work, I began retrieving my many materials and locking the garage up for the day. Plunk-plunk! Plunk-plunk! I could have sworn I had turned that annoying thing off when I started, but it seems that one must always stay in the loop of communication, so I guess my teenage mind had thought better of it. I finished cleaning up and clicked and poked all the necessary buttons to open up a text message from a recently acquired acquaintance of mine, named George. My mind immediately went from a state of bliss to a state of annoyance and caution.

George is not a bad person. Let me get that straight first of all. He is just one of those guys that you'd rather just be able to say hi to in passing, and leave it at that. He's a bit shorter than I, and I'm about 5'7", so he's small compared to most guys I know. He has jet black curly hair just long enough to require combing, and thick eyebrows framing small, dark eyes. Although huskily built, his is not quite overweight. Talking quickly is off limits, because of his heavy Greek accent. His whole family is from Greece, which is where he spends every summer. For the most part he is a sweetheart, but has a sailor's mouth and a sixteen-year-old boy's gross mind. Not surprising, and for the most part expected. Amazing what one can find out about a person in a few short conversations. You'd think that I'd known him for years.

I opened the text.

Hey buddy. I find that term a tad bit condescending coming from him, so I was immediately annoyed. But nevertheless, I texted back. What's up. This was my first mistake. When the very first two words someone says annoys me, it usually isn't a smart idea to continue to strike up a conversation with them. Silly me.

For the next ten to fifteen minutes we made small talk about a number of different things, each insignificant and pointless, but each reminding me of why I do actually enjoy talking to George. He is easily amused, and can make even the most boring of ideas seem hilarious. My initial annoyance had dissipated, and my guard had been let down. I remembered that just because he's a guy, doesn't mean we can't just be friends.  But then of course, he dropped the bomb on me.

We still going out tomorrow for lunch?

Crap. Crap crap crap crap crap. I remembered suddenly a conversation between us a week or so ago where he had initially asked me this question. I also remembered sullenly agreeing because 1) he had been asking me every time we talked for the past couple of weeks, 2) I always said no, and 3) I was tired of being the mean girl who never gave the guy a chance. I remembered thinking: Really, how bad could it be? It's only lunch. Of course, my air-headed self trying to do what I thought at the time was the right thing. Now that the time had actually come, I quickly realized that this was by no means a good idea. How could I lead him on that way? In no way was it fair to him for me to feign interest, so sadly, I decided that I had no choice but to be a jerk. Naturally, now I realize that there were many other options to get myself out of this date, but at the time I was hurridly trying to come up with some credible excuse as to why I just couldn't join him that day.

Hold on let me check, I typed. I mashed the Send button and racked my brain for something that I might have had to get done tomorrow instead, because lying is no option for me. I knew the guilt I'd feel later would be ten times as bad as the actual date would have been. Thinking of nothing truthful, and with none of my friends having their telephones on, I ran to the back yard where my very last resort was happily chatting away with my father, unaware of my teenage crisis.

"Hey, Mom?"

"What have you gotten yourself into this time?" she replied laughing, immediately recognizing my flighty tone of voice.

"What's the nicest way to say no when someone asks you to do something?" I asked, dodging her question and hoping that for once she would simply just answer, and not bombard me with the usually inevitable "Why do you ask?" or "Who's doing what?" follow up questions. I'm finding out that there is no such thing as a simple answer when it comes to mothers. She proceded to solidify this lesson.

"Who's asked you to do what?" she asked with a suspicious look on her face. Seeing no way around it, I relented and relayed to her the whole story of my idiotic misfortune. She listened with a curious look on her face and when I was done, she chuckled to herself. I stood there getting more annoyed by the minute, and was having a hard time finding the humor in the situation and remembering why I make her my last resort.

"Oh Kars, you owe me big time after this," she said with a grin. I stared at her stupidly. "We CAN be busy tomorrow if you'd like. I was thinking yesterday that we might take your grandparents to lunch tomorrow out of town while the lady cleans their house if you didn't have any plans made already. Now I've made my mind up and say that you have no choice but to come."

I let go of the breath that I hadn't realized I was holding and blew out a sigh of relief. The miracles this woman comes up with, I will never understand.

"But let me just say something else really quick, even though I totally bailed you out on that one." she said. I knew it was too good to be true. "You need to learn that there's some things that you're just going to have to do for the benefit of other people. Even if it does turn out bad. You might be breaking this George's heart by running out on him like this. In the future, I'm not going to save you. Just make sure you know that." Only a mother could incorporate a life lesson into this little ordeal and make me feel like a jerk for taking the easy way out at the same time.

After hurridly walking up to the house to escape my parent's growing amusement at my discomfort, I plopped myself down on the living room couch and texted poor George my apologies and reasoning behind my being unavailable to accompany him.

His response: Oh...okay. I was really looking forward to it. That's disappointing.

Just rip my heart to shreds why don't you.

Life lesson #67: Never agree to something you do not fully believe in doing if you are somewhat of a coward like me. It will not end well for anyone involved, and you will end up owing your mother big time, which is never a good thing when you are sixteen and still living off of her income.

Three cheers for young ignorance! (: