TheBanyanTree: my son is slaying me...

[Julie Anna Teague]

My (almost) 15 year old son Andy is slaying me with his offbeat brand of humor.
 I swear sometimes I think he's completely humor impaired when it comes to
"getting" jokes, but then he can drop a one-liner with a dead-pan expression and
leave me rolling on the floor and slobbering on myself.  

This week he told me where I could find his blog.  I'd encouraged him to start
one, and surprisingly he did, but he's been keeping it away from his mother's
prying eyes.  He finally realized, I suppose, that I'm not the type of mom to go
curtailing his freedom of expression by upbraiding him for a few profanities or
drilling him about something in his blog.  I'm a firm believer in having a space
to release and express.  My mom found my diary when I was a teenager, and the
accosted me about something in it. Something very personal.  It was a crushing
event and to this day I do not keep a hand-written journal lying around or even
hidden in a drawer.  I promised myself I would give my kids the space to express
themselves without fear.  

So, anyway, I was reading his blog today and the kid was killing me.  First,
some background: Our neighbor, Mr. U*** (who was also a teacher at Andy's Jr.
High, and who, quite frankly, is a wee bit strange) used to bring his little boy
by to see our chickens in their chicken coop.  Andy would always say, "What's he
DOING out there by the chickens?"  "He's just LOOKING at them, Andy, sheesh."  
On and on he went with the Mr. U***/chicken thing.  When the chickens started
disappearing in the night (we live-trapped four murderous raccoons and two
opposums), Andy told me he thought Mr. Upchurch was stealing the chickens.  He
had a thing for the chickens, Andy was sure.  I could never tell if he was
joking or whether this was another of his sometimes oddball obessive thoughts. 
Today, I looked at Andy's blog (with his blessing), and the title of the blog is
                    
                        CHICKENS! 
and the subtitle is: 

               Mr. U***...how could you?  

I just cracked up.

One of his entries read:

Down to one chicken!
damn....what the hell keeps getting them....
well....

chicken #1~dead                                   

chicken #2~dissapeared                       

chicken #3~dead                                   

chicken #4~dissapeared                       

chicken #5~dissapeared                       

chicken #6~ STILL HERE!                

(<gulp> what will happen next?)           

I don't know if that will strike anyone else as funny.  Maybe you have to hear
my son deliver something like this in his droll way. There is other funny stuff,
but I'll keep it between Andy and myself and his teen pals--mostly teen drivel
and first kisses and boredom and stuff.  But the kid keeps me laughing. 

Julie