Boys Being Boys?

I grew up in a predominantly female household. My only brother is sixteen years older than I am, and he had moved out of the house before I turned four. So, when I gave birth to two boy babies, thereby forever securing my position as the only female in the house, I created a very unfamiliar situation for myself.

I had often heard the phrase, "boys will be boys," but I didn't really understand what that meant until I was surrounded by them. They're just, well, different. Luckily, my boys aren't particularly rowdy, but even so, there have always been differences in how they play, what they do for entertainment, and their perception that openly farting around others is perfectly acceptable. I think I've done an okay job of accepting these differences and just rolling with them.

One thing I still have a hard time understanding, though, is sleepovers. Maybe I'm unusual in my desire to sleep in my own bed and not be surrounded by others, husband excluded, of course. My older son, however, is often asking if he can sleep over at a friend's house. (Yeah, I know what you're thinking, but I don't think they're up to no good. I hope.) We don't really have the space in our house, and with the pandemic, my son knows that I don't like to have a lot of different people in the house. He came up with a solution to both problems: our tent trailer.

It started last summer. He wanted to have his friends over after graduation. Since he had missed out on so much - senior prom, grad night, senior trip to Disneyland, an actual graduation - how could I say no to such a small request? So, we pulled the tent trailer out of the garage and set it up in the driveway, where he and a couple of his friends spent the night. They loved it!

I was a bit surprised, though, when he asked a few nights ago if he could have his friends over to spend the night in the tent trailer. It's still pretty cold at night, down in the low 40s or upper 30s, so that didn't sound like an enjoyable experience to me. But what do I know? Permission was granted and once again the tent trailer was hauled out of the garage and set up in the driveway.

Since these events start after I go to bed, it wasn't until I looked out the window Friday morning and saw the extra cars parked at the end of our court that I knew for certain that the sleepover had occurred. They had had a sleepover a few nights before and survived, so I was fairly certain I wasn't going to discover frozen college students in my driveway when I left for work. I also wasn't expecting to discover what I did.

As I headed to my car, parked next to the tent trailer, I realized that there was someone standing outside the trailer on the other side. All I could see was the bottom of a pant leg. Well, that and a stream of urine arching into the bark on the side of the driveway.

I'm not sure, but I may have gasped out loud when I realized what I was witnessing. I stopped in my tracks. What should I do? If I continued around the front of my car to the driver's side, that might expand my view and lead to an awkward encounter. Quickly, I changed course and went around the back of the car instead, got in, and backed out of the driveway.

Needless to say, I was disgusted and mortified by what I had seen. But I have to confess, I had to chuckle when I thought about what that kid must have been thinking when he heard me get in my car.