Real Life with Teenager

Monday is my day to post something I wrote for writers group. This one is from last Spring. I enjoy reading my stories outloud to the group and hearing their stories read to me. Printing them here isn't quite the same. Cheryl-Anne gets to read hers on the radio. Tune in here. Imagine what follows in my voice:
First, I think I need to explain why I was in my son's drawers...dresser drawers. Where, by the way, I found surprisingly few articles of clothing - high waisted carpenter jeans and long sleeved tee shirts he hasn't worn since 6th grade. Library fines. Only library fines could have sent me on this particular journey. (I am not the kind of mother who would read her teenager's journal or go through his things. Honestly, I don't even want to step into his room.)$189 in library fines. I felt an urgent need to stop the metaphorical bleeding. This amount was not going to wait until he came home from school - the library would be closed by then, and who knows what tomorrow's total would be?
I called him on the phone. He told me the Cd's were in his top dresser drawer. I shuddered, thanked him, and hung up. I stepped gingerly while trying not to look at the floor strewn with clothes and books and papers (presumably school work.) There was a jack-in-the-box effect when I opened the drawer. "Pop!" goes the gum and candy wrapper collection. I am thinking they look like garbage to me, but they must have sentimental value for him. "Sweet things I have loved," or something like that. I have to dig to get to all of the Cd's. (Note to self: get shallower drawers.) As I was digging, I uncovered a stack of magazines, face down in the drawer. Oh, crap! I close my eyes and bow my head for a moment of silent prayer: "Please, Lord, don't let it be..." I take a quick snort of air into my nostrils, the kind that holds back tears. I move slowly, with one eye open, I turn the stack over... The New Yorker. Exhale. Big Exhale. Buried in his dresser drawer, my son of the maxed out library card, has 6 or 8 issues of The New Yorker. I gathered up the borrowed Violent Femmes, the overdue Bowling For Soup, the presumed lost Flight of the Concordes and took them to the library with a smile on my face. I am going to have to admit, he doesn't know squat about responsibility, but he is a class act. Oh, I love him.
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