La-Zy Boy

Although it sounds like a contradiction, some people will go to great lengths to be lazy.

While I can't claim a complete exemption from this title, I hadve come a lot way since I reigned supreme in my childhood and teen years. Yup, I've been reminded that the term "lazy teenager" is redundant. And thankfully been assured I am not alone in dealing with this.

I will admit that numerous times in my childhood my mother called me helpless. Not hopeless, but helpless, to be clear it is the polar opposite of being helpful. I get the point. Now.

I know I was not the only teenager like this. In fact, I got hard evidence this past weekend that at least one of my sisters had this work avoidance business down to a science. As some background, my mother was one of those (I bet yours was, too) who made you sit at the table until you were done eating. If it was something we didn't like -- onion in anything, liver, beets, even lumpy oatmeal -- we were to sit there until we ate it. To her credit, we were poor and really couldn't afford to waste any food.

But my one sister (who out of the goodness of my heart will remain nameless) used this rule to her advantage. She realized that if she sat there long enough pretending not to like the food, then by the time the dishes were done, she could miraculously eat it and, by coincidence, get out of doing dishes.

Man, I wish I would have thought of that. I hated doing the dishes. I still do!

The parents in this house aren't nearly so stringent. And we're paying for it.

Carter doesn't have a list of chores, so to speak, but he is good about putting his dishes in the dishwasher and running that occasionally. He has washed his clothes on occasion, rarely folding them, but does take care of his own room. Still, when asked to do anything -- like pick up branches in the back yard so Dad can mow -- he gives this big sigh like we just asked him to walk a mile on hot coals before being hung by his fingernails for an hour!

Last night, we was concerned he misplaced his student ID card. He ran downstairs to see if it accidentally went through the wash like his iPod did early this year. After checking every pocket in his pants and shorts, he came upstairs and reported he did not find it.

"So are your clothes in the dryer now?" I asked.

He gave me this blank stare like "Huh?" and said no.

"You mean you touched every item of clothing in there and didn't bother to put them in the dryer?"

Uhmmm, no.

Uff da. And here I thought common sense skipped my generation!

Granted, he was on a mission (and did later find it in his room), but still, it seems logical that the clothes were just sitting there, clean and wet and needed to get into the dryer.

Maybe lazy trumps logic when it comes to teenagers. I think we'll have plenty of examples to chose from as we figure this out.