Friday 3 July 2009

Advice for the men with teenage sons.


I have finally discovered why my new shorts only cost 9 Euro.

They look good, even my 18 year old son wants to wear them, and they have all the pockets and zips that you need -there's even the correct amount of velcro, enough to make a satisfying scratch noise, not so much that you get stuck to passer-bys.

By the way, you should NEVER lend your clothes to your teenage son. if you do then the next time you see them will be on a stranger in a town near where you live. My swimming trunks disappeared this week to be seen next on a female who had only once visited the house.

Socks are the worst things, your teenage son will never have a clean pair- especially on a day when he might get knocked down and taken to hospital - and you will often be sock-less as a result. I seem to have solved this problem by dying all mine pink and now i only buy them from the women's section in pink or purple. He won't be seen dead in them.

My shorts turned out to be so cheap because they set off every security system in every supermarket in Montauban - a local town NOT the origin of the shorts.

It was confirmed to be my shorts after security invited me to strip down to my underwear in the sports shop.

On close inspection there turns out to be a small flexible alarm trigger sewn into an inside label. To be fair it does have "remove before using" in five languages printed on it but how was i supposed to know?

My daughter says i should cut it out as i might get in trouble - because it INSTRUCTS me to remove it. She is very practical, last night as i was drifting off to sleep she tripped over a tin cat bowl in the corridor and after a brief pause her voice drifted up -"I'm all right."

Oops, silly me,I was thinking about all the granules i would step in next morning..

My son, sometimes prone to obsessive paranoia, says it may be toxic - I was thinking it was electrical.

My wife said nothing, just picked up the scissors and looked threatening.

I was thinking to leave it where it is, i've got kind of used to the beeps each time i enter the shop. Everyone looks at you, you feel important and all sorts of conversations are struck up with strangers.

Any advice?

2 comments:

Vicki Hollett said...

I'm so glad you posted this in the 2009 round up. I hadn't read it before and it gave me a good chuckle. And my advice? (If it's not too late) Keep that label sewn in. What does a little loss of dignity matter when you can strike up conversations with other shoppers you might otherwise never have met?

popps said...

Good advice Vicki - unfortunately after three weeks of enjoying myself and mortifying my daughter i was manhandled by security staff in the city and they forcefully removed it - mind you that struck up a few conversations too.