Teenage Dream

At 8.40pm on Wednesday 19^th June, I officially became the mum of two teenage daughters. It’s about time I wrote YA novel I thought. I should know my audience.

A few days prior I'd hosted a coming of age party. Fifteen, 12 and just 13 year olds. It was an eye opener. But quite frankly what stage of parenting isn’t?

As I served the drinks I stated the rules. ‘First rule: No drinks in the living room please. Second rule: have fun.’

‘And have a sugar high,’ squeaked a smiley girl, stuffing her fluro striped face with a handful of party lolly mix.

‘Go crazy,’ I said. And they did.

As soon as I’d served red Fanta in paper cups and retreated to my holding pen. The kitchen. Some of the girls started a burping competition. Fair enough. They were thirsty young things and that drink was obviously carbonated. But even the three boys present were shocked by the volley of throaty belches emanating from these pretty tweenies all togged up in their fluro skinnies and white T-shirts.

It was a glow in the dark party. Oh yes. We had glow sticks, glow glasses, glow-earrings, glow necklaces and glow-bracelets. Thanks K-Mart. We had a happy birthday banner painted with glow paint. And as already mentioned we had a lot of faces covered in glow-paint. Thanks Whitcoulls; and FYI that pink colour leaves orange stains on coloured concrete floors. We had gazillions of white balloons with lcd lights inside. Thanks Warehouse.

And the piece de résistance, reminiscent of 80’s nightclubs, the black light. $23 to hire for the night from Party Plus. If you stood too close to it you looked like an Oompa Loompa whose teeth had just been lasered Ultra White. Sick.

As Justin Bieber screeched out ‘Girlfriend’ for the third time, I busied myself with heating an array of nasty premade party snacks. My daughter wanted a dinner tray of freshly made sushi. I said that would cost too much. The kids gobbled up chicken bits the size and shape of popcorn and freakishly long oven fries. It was comforting to see Alison Holst’s youthful face on the packets of frozen sausage rolls I’d selected. They were good too. Blast them at 220 and the pastry’s all crunch and yum.

One boy complained the playlist was terrible. I was with him on that, but I wasn’t allowed near the stereo. I wasn’t allowed near anything actually unless required for photography or food replenishing. I had to bite my tongue and put Katy Perry on the stereo near the kitchen, loud. When in Rome.

They moved outside and toasted marshmallows over a brazier. Things started getting out of hand. An eleven year old male had taken his shirt off. The girls were jeering. He was taking selfies. For whom I wondered? They ate smores (molten marshmallows squashed between Chocolate Wheatens). Then they disappeared into the dark armed with only their glow in the dark arsenal to play spotlight. It was practically snowing. Some fell down banks, others in gravel. I let them get really wet them called them inside. Then I mopped mud off the floor.

The big screen we borrowed from a friend was a hit. They played One Direction parodies mostly to annoy the resident almost 15 year old. Hardened Beliebers all of them. Next they projected facebook and chatted to outsiders. Stranger things have happened I suppose.

Some of the photos were telling. Like the one of the lass gyrating with the empty wine bottle in her mouth. Now deleted. The bottle in question had been used to play spin-the-bottle-whose-present-will-I-open-next?

At the time I thought perhaps a plastic one would have been more suitable but her father assured me it was washed. And I was a bit preoccupied getting the oven to frozen pastry cooking temperature. Maybe plastic doesn’t spin as well? I can’t remember what we used when I was a young lassy. But it must have been glass; those midsize bottles we returned to the dairy then bought a ten cent mixture. Heady times back in the 70’s, when spin-the-bottle was a kissing game.

The party lasted three hours. It could have been three weeks. When the birthday girl said it was the best party, I knew my job was done. One parent arrived 45 minutes after the allotted pickup to collect four girls. I was lying on the sofa by that stage, wishing I hadn’t had the urge to try all the high salt high fat food on offer. At least I’d held back on the red Fanta. Having that cocktail of processed preservatives repeating would have been lethal.

A few days later the actual birth date arrived. Darling daughter announced at breakfast, ‘hey mum I’m legal.’

The words ‘For what?’ started flashing across my frontal lobes like a cheap Vegas neon.

I swallowed my toast, ‘For what?’ I asked, taking a swig of coffee.

‘Facebook,’ she beamed.

Now, about that YA novel...to be continued

Chelle Rae's HOT, Honestly

One of the perks of having children is accompanying them on outings you might not otherwise qualify for. Attending a boy-band concert, for example. Mashing it out in the mosh-pit to Nashville heart throbs, Hot Chelle Rae, at the Wellington Town Hall last month, has definitely been one of the highlights of my year. Honestly.

 ‘Mum, you’re the only mum in the mosh pit,’ teenage daughter, complained.

‘The sound is best here,’ I replied, undeterred. As was the view. I lapped it up, just like all the other females (less than half my age) squished in around me. Meeting the lead singer, the guitarist, the bass player and the drummer, while out shopping earlier had naturally heightened my joie-de-boy band. ‘Yeah come on mom get in the photo,’ they flirted. I giggled and obliged. Teenage daughter told me I looked like a cougar. Nonetheless, I half expected a dedication, to her of course. She would have called that golden.

Anyway, I wasn’t the only oldie in the mash-that-is-the-mosh, I had my sister with me. And who’d want to be one of those sad-o ‘rents at the back, watching disapprovingly at the waving warm sea of half-clad innocence for two hours.

Naturally the audience was 95% female. I was fascinated. A new generation, yet the personas were unchanged (social media comments aside). The betarted sluzzers in the queue, flesh exposed, caked in makeup. ‘I’m so totally gonna to make this my profile pic,’ said one in repose on a parking bollard. ‘I’m gonna move to Wellington with my boyfriend,’ said another, about 14. The moody beotch leaning against a column with the baby faced, barely moustached boy. The nerdy girls, the innocent pretty girls, the plump girls, the painfully tall girls, the limp haired pimpled girls. Appearances aside, they were all there for one thing: The promise that those cute boys on the stage loved them back. Honestly.  

‘We love you Wellington,’ said Ryan, the lead singer. ‘We’re having the best time up here. Are you?’ The screams were deafening. Each teenage dreamer, together yet alone in her own private heaven. I blocked my ears. And my nose.  BO, toe jam, mild perspiration and warm damp hair mingled into one pongy perfume. The bouncer-dude up front should have sprayed Lily-of-the-Valley Impulse, not water on the crowd. Intermittently a limp young thing got hauled up onto the stage, by the water sprayer man, and put in the recovery position. I was glad I’d come to chaperone.

The few males present had dates. One 20-something boy, spent most of the main act macking and pushing his way back and forth, with his completely out of it girl. She almost fell over several times, despite the mesh of bodies. At first, I figured she was bladdered, but all that tongue diving mmm? One thing was certain – unlike the rest of us, every carefully penned lyric was lost on her. She’d have no memory of her $90 night, teenage daughter and I agreed.

At one point two giraffe girls pushed in front of us. Then before I could say; hey, we can’t SEE. They fished around in their bags, donned heels and grew another six inches. The cheek. Meanwhile, a crop topped, denim-undie clad child squeezed in on my right. Holding fast in the mosh, was as fulltime as waving your cellphone. But Ryan was a showman and I’d been sent the links, I knew the words. Their out-of-love anthems were catchy. Honestly.

The next day, a music reviewer wrote of the; “popcorn-crunch of this mallrat muzak”. Poor thing. His feet weren’t in his teenage-girl-shoes. He wasn’t swaying in the mosh. He wasn’t wearing a white t-shirt with the band members’ names scrawled in indelible marker. He wasn’t living a new and imaginary love-life, just for one night. He didn’t know the words. These over-cologned, clean cut, incredibly polite and heavily tattooed young musicians playing their first headline act, revelled in the air-splitting girl-screams reverberating through their mics. They played two encores. And they too scanned the audience (especially Nash) looking for… something.  Love?  Marriage? A date? What, whatever.

Two girls called, Albany & Renee, held a plaque, it said it all: “Honestly, (we) Like it like that, Tonight Tonight”.