My wife and I have a glorious marriage. She tells me we do anyway. Actually, I believe her on this one, because it seems around our house everything runs very smoothly. We have been together long enough that we understand each other’s needs, pick up the slack when one or the other has a bad day, respect the other’s personal space, and can look in the other’s morning face and breath without becoming violently ill. This is starting to sound like a Hallmark movie script and well, it’s not. Our love isn’t going to be tested by the cute young blond, with the cutesy name, next door. Frankly, my wife is better friends with Coco than I am. C’est la vie.

In fact, our marriage would be just about ideal if it weren’t for an odd pest infestation. We just can’t seem to get rid of them. Even an exterminator with twenty years’ experience took one look at the size of these creatures, turned, and walked away. Their presence in our house has cause a great strain on our relationship, and it’s beginning to show. I’ve been told by others who have had the same issue that the pests do leave after all the food in the house is gone, but often cause a heart sickness that as yet science has not come up with a cure for. You may have guessed it; we have been invaded by teenagers.

The thing is, when these creatures were in their larval stages, my wife actually grew quite fond of them. I was in favor of them for a while but they just got larger and larger until I finally wanted rid of them, they were bigger than me. I even went so far as to abandon them in a nearby field but they cleverly followed me back to the house. So, I’ve given up and just accept they’re going to eat all my food and be underfoot.

As I mentioned before, the real problem is that they have ruined the perfect relationship with my wife. Life was so sweet before they came around. We were a team. We understood each other’s needs. We had the perfect division of labor. We had time to spend together. We had clean underwear for goodness’s sake. Not anymore. With teens in the house everything becomes a problem.

First there is the issue of food. Everyone in the world will tell you that a flock of teens will eat more than a plague of locusts. This is just a rumor started by people who know it to be true. However, things are much more subtle and complicated than this. Take roast beef for instance. If you purchase this commodity from the store, be sure to put it down quickly. A proper teen will eat through all paper and plastic packaging to get at it. Fingers are but a minor obstacle. I lost two before I learned this, so be happy I am telling you this before your time comes. Gosh I’m starting to feel like the host of a nature show. “Notice how the ravenous teenager eats consistently. Yet it has the hummingbird metabolism which keeps it in a constant state of starvation.” Oops! Sorry I was gone, I’m back now.

I mentioned purchased beef is consumed in a frenzy but if a parent makes a roast and serves it for dinner, teens will spurn it as if it were poison. This phenomenon is known to scientists, who are silly enough to study that sort of thing, as Meal Detestation. No one knows why, but the hungriest of teens will immediately lose all appetite when faced with the prospect of sitting down at a table. It doesn’t matter the food; Chicken, pork, or even salad. If it is formally served it becomes unwanted. I once had a teen drag himself into the house saying he was starving. I made chicken nuggets, an adored teen staple, and placed it on the dining-room table. Even this favorite food was rejected. Yet, fifteen minutes later after the dinner was over those very same cold nuggets disappeared in a few moments. Why? Only the ancient ones have such knowledge.

Sir Isaac Newton created calculus as a way to explain the world. Well, here’s a math problem even he couldn’t figure out; When I was single I had about one load of laundry a week. When I married, the two of us had three loads. When we had three children, that burden grew to eight. Then one of them became a teen. I now do six loads of laundry every day and can’t keep up. The thing is it’s mostly towels. They don’t even shower every day, although I seriously wish they would, and there fifty thousand towels to wash. I only own seventeen towels. I’ve counted them many times. So, how can it be that I launder several thousand every week? This should be impossible, but not with an infestation of teens.

Then there is something I call the stupidity factor. Our towels are kept in an upstairs linen closet. The problem is, it takes time and energy to launder millions of these drying cloths and exhaustion usually prohibits me from having the strength to move them all, without heavy machinery. My elder children are very intelligent. Their high-school grades prove this. Why then must they ask the same question every day. “Are the towels upstairs?” No, they aren’t. I truly wish they were. I feel very bad, but as a parent you must understand that things fall through the cracks. I want everything to be completely perfect for my children, but I also want to know how they make fluffy towels breed.

Here’s a fact which comes from nature programs about household pests. I have learned that rats live in something called Rat-Holes, similarly mice live in Mouse-Holes, and as one would expect teens live in Black-Holes. With the exception of the teen itself, anything that goes into the teen living quarters is lost forever. The proof of this is simple, give your son or daughter a basket of clean laundry. You will never see that basket again. You may see clothing which was in that basket on the teen someday, but the basket is no more. It works the same way with dishes. Somehow the teen creates an Earth-bound gravity well which sucks in certain physical objects and refuses to let them go. Other objects can be removed, but only if the teen wants it removed, and uses their strange power to retrieve it. It’s truly quite amazing to watch.

My sister has a smaller infestation in her house and she seems to think teens are not so bad. I think she’s nuts but her argument is that a teen can hold an intelligent conversation. I can’t deny this, but here’s my thoughts. My teens are indeed smart, so much so I can’t understand them. How am I supposed to know if they’re smart or faking it?

I will admit mice and ants can’t fix my computer. Therefore, I haven’t poisoned those pesky teenagers. YET!