This means that he made plans to go to the beach at some indefinite time in the past.
This means that at the present time, he was aware of the move.
These two concepts put together would state that at someindefinite time in the past, when the date of the move had not been set, her son made plans to go to the beach. At the present time, or rather in the slight past, she set the date for the move, and because it conflicted with teh previously made plans to go to the beach, her son was aware of the move, but went anyways. He therefore knew when he left for the beach, that his Mom would be moved when he got back.
leafrog, you’re so sweet to remember that! Yes he climbed with my seventysomething-year-old mother. He was seventeen at the time.
My heart is warmed, and my faith in SDMB has been renewed. I left my office at 5:15 and after seeing how humorless this thread had become I’m now cheered to find that many people did find amusement in my OP.
I want to state a number of things for the record:
-The original OP was written in a style that I hoped would be amusing to anyone who has teenagers in the house. I never thought that a reader would have to have inside information to enjoy the joke. Let’s look at it again:
-I was trying to be as obvious as possible and still retain some humor.
“No, really!”
“I swear, I’m not making this up!”
“It can be done, folks.”
“This is the stuff of legend”
Come on now, if I had dumped my kid, if he was a “a pedophile drug addict” or even just “an unforgivable fuck-up”, would I have posted that kind of OP? I don’t think you need the back-story to recognize that a mother in that kind of trouble would have posted in the Pit to vent, or in IMHO to get some advice.
I’m sorry that a few people didn’t get the joke.
Shaolinrabbit, you are wise beyond your years, or behind your ears, either way: Thank you for your post. Also my thanks go to everyone who chimed in that my humor wasn’t so obscure as to be lost completely.
Anyone else who dreams of having the house to themselves can email me for pointers. I’m going to see if I can get this thread closed now.
Right after I graduated from High School, my parents sold our house, and moved away. The contract to sell had about a ninety day lag time, and since I had a job in the area, and did not plan to leave for school, I told my parents I would rather stay in the old house, until I moved to college. They said fine, but I had to be out by the last day of August, because a cleaning crew would show up and throw out anything that was still in the house, bright and early on September the first.
I lived there all summer. No parties and I didn’t mention it to my friends.
Until . . . August 31st. I was at a friends house, he asked if I wanted to do something, and I said I needed to go home and change clothes. I suggested he drive. He agreed, and we picked up a friend along the way. I walked into the house, with them, and called out, “Mom?” They were aghast. Especially when they saw the note my mom had left, giving the date the cleaners would come. (I had left it in place.)
It was such a great gag! No one had noticed that all my clothes and personal stuff were packed up in the car, ready to leave the next day for school. Nothing in my room but a bed, some sheets, and lamp. I said, “Oh well, fuck the bed.” Picked up the lamp, and walked out.
My friends were so pissed when I told them I had been living in the empty house for the two and a half months.
Even if that were true, who are you to say what the true feelings are and interpret them? Anita is one of my best friends and I know both her and her son. I can tell you for certain that the “true feelings” here are that she found it humorous that her situation (moving while her son was out of town, and he hadn’t seen the new place yet, though he knew she had bought it and knew she was moving that day) could be stated in a way that sounded like the cliché of the parents running off without letting the kids know. This sort of humor is common around here and I have no idea why it seems to have backfired on this particular occasion. To me it’s similar to things like the time I told everyone that I’d gotten into Anita’s pants and slept in her bed the night before. I stated it like that, and it was the absolute, literal truth. See, I’d spent the night at her house and slept in her guest room (she owns the bed, so it’s her bed) and I’d borrowed a pair of her pants to wear, so I was in her pants. But it was much funnier to word it in a way that made it sound like something else. Of course, the full explanation was forthcoming, as it was in this case. The need for so many to read something sinister into things, rather than picking up on cues (smileys and so on, and the reactions of the people who knowher) is very disturbing. What ever happened to the benefit of the doubt?
I don’t know Anita, but I got the gag. I just don’t think someone who did this in a bad way (and apparently that does happen), would have posted it so cheerily on a message board – so I assumed that there was a backstory and deduced more-or-less what the backstory was.
But then, I have an 18 year old son. Believe me, if you’re raising teenagers, you gotta have a sense of humor. For example, some of you know that my son is going to summer school to graduate early (he’ll be graduating next month, during what would have been the summer between his junior and senior years) and enlisting the Navy – I started a couple of threads about it during the winter. Yet, when speaking to people I often joke about how “we took him down to the recruiters and signed him up.”
Sometimes, definitely, but definitely not almost always. A lot of jokes are funny because they’re the opposite of the truth. For example, I will frequently makes jokes with my husband like, “No, I don’t remember that conversation. You must have been talking to your girlfriend about that.” I don’t for one second think that he would actually cheat on me, and that’s why it’s funny.
I do this too. Even leaving messages for him now and then at work when a new person answers his office phone for him to call his girlfriend on her cel. Charmingly enough he always knows just who to call.
Absolutely; there is a little truth in all role playing. In this case, the truth is that I’m in heaven living on my own again for the first time in twenty years! The fact that I moved out while he was out of town was icing on the cake. He made the decision to move in with friends a while back, and since then, he has treated my suggestions with disdain and has turn his nose up at my offers to help him. He is a confident teenager who thinks he knows what to expect when he gets out on his own, and for all I know, he might actually know how hard it’s going to be. After all, the friend who he has moved in with is a year older and is living on his own, working two jobs to pay the rent. Kyle’s not blind. He has just decided that he doesn’t want his mom for a roommate anymore. I wish him luck, and have left the door open if he wants to live with me and go to college.
But we have met: At RTFirefly’s going away cookout for the Bluesclan!
Well, yes, I should have specified. I meant that, while we’ve met, I don’t know you as a mom, or know anything about your relationship with your boy – we didn’t talk about our kids when we met. But I was just in a hurry to get on to my own story, so I used an abbreviated version.
Really.
Red-faced Jess (who really does remember meeting you know that you reminded her )
It surprises me sometimes when these things take a turn like this one did. Of course you didn’t abandon your child! Of course there had to be backstory here.
Please don’t let the snark put you off telling funnies in the future! I enjoy them.
Too many humor-impaired people in this thread. I suspected it was a joke from start, just the wording did it.
I remember when I was a kids my mom’s favorite threat used to be “someday you’ll come back from school and won’t find me here”. Funny thing is now I think that we actually deserved it.
Being a college student who is living with my parents for the summer, before I return to school in the fall, the idea of my parents shipping out on me one day sounds kind of like everybody’s nightmare and fantasy all rolled into one. I still rely on my parents for financial support for what my job and my scholarships can’t pay for, but I love feeling independent by living in a city 100 miles away from them during the school year and operating on my own for the most part. Very liberating.
I really enjoyed Triskadecamus’s story, too. Thanks for sharing!
As the mother of a 21 year old college student home for the summer, and also as an ex-college student, I agree with Searching For Truth’s fantasy/nightmare opinion.
I dunno, didn’t think it was that funny at first, but then began giggling.
When soon school rolls back around, I’ll miss the kid, but neither the laundry nor the dirty dishes.
Everyone here comes from a different family. Some of you are reacting with horror; had this happend in your family, it might well *have * been horrible. I am from a family where this kind of thing needs to happen. Coming from such a family, I can more readily imagine a situation in which I’d cheer Anita on for her actions; those of you with different experiences should acknowledge those differences rather than slam her.
I’m no Wittgenstein, but I’m going to compensate by learning to surf.
