Attention Teenagers! NO is a complete sentence!

Today I’m giving out free lessons in life to teenagers. Since Sara is unlikely to read this I hopefully won’t be the victim of my own genius.

1. – Practice this in front of the mirror until you have perfected it and you can reduce being grounded or having (insert favorite thing here) taken away from you by like 87%, ready? Stare straight ahead. Don’t smirk, grimace, roll your eyes, or shift your weight. Don’t sigh, grunt, flail, or otherwise make a movement that might be interpreted as any thing other than complete attention to what is being said to you. If you can pull this off you can also get a really cool job guarding the Queen later in life.

2. – Here is the list of responses to your parents that are acceptable.

- Yes

- OK

- No problem

- Sure, I can do that

3. – Under no circumstances should you let your parents find out the things that are most important to you or they will become weapons to be used against you. Example: You say something rude and your dad says, “Give me that iPod.” Looks straight ahead using your skills from #1, choose any answer from #2. Pretend like it isn’t a big deal or you are gonna lose that iPod every time you even breathe incorrectly.

4. – I once read a rule of thumb that said, “If you think you have seen a mouse, you have.” This rule applies to any story you might have concocted that you think will avoid some form of trouble. If you think they are on to you. They are. In fact…since teenagers are intellectually incapable of putting together a really good, believable story you might as well come clean at the first sign of unraveling.

Example: “Hi honey did you fun at the movies?”

Wrong answer: “Yeah it was fun, we had a great time!”

Right answer: “Ok, ok, (using both #1 and #2) We stole a car and took the neighbor kid hostage”

The right answer avoids days of interrogation and allows your friends to get a jump on a good lawyer.

You’re welcome.

No comments:

Post a Comment