With my mother still visiting me in Japan, I figured what better way to have her on the stream than by her writing about one of my most embarrassing memories.
What could possible go wrong?
During the last stream, my mom was the special guest, and chat voted between five different embarrassing personal memories for her to write about.
Here’s the choices:
#1. Little Scott makes guillotines/bloody axes in kindergarten
#2. Elementary-age Scott sings the Oscar Meyer jingle
#3. Middle-school-age Scott farts in the moving truck
#4. High-school-age Scott’s co-ed sleepover
#5. College-age Scott tells his mom he’s getting married
Chat voted for #4, and it was off to the races! My mother wrote the first draft, and then we edited it together to make it sparkle.
Watch the video here to see mom’s first draft,
or just scroll down to read our final version.
Here’s the final draft that we edited together:
My son Scott was fifteen years old when he was invited to a co-ed birthday party. On the one hand, as his mother I was happy, but on the other I was shocked. This was the same kid who I had to bribe with cash to go to his middle school dances! And now he was socializing voluntarily. Maybe my nightmares of him living alone in a cabin in Montana forever wouldn’t come true after all.
His dad drove him to the girl’s house, which he described to me later as a McMansion in a brand-new McNeighborhood. A straight-A home for the straight-A students attending the party there. He’d also given Scott the family cellphone, which back then was a little green-screened Nokia plastic brick that could text a whopping 25 times per month. With that cutting-edge piece of technology in his pocket, Scott could be sure to call us when it was time to pick him up. No need to pay a quarter for a pay phone when we could pay fifty dollars a month to make his life slightly easier!
Well, he called our landline at around 11:00 at night. I thought he was ready to be picked up.
But no. He called to inform us that he had no regard for us as parents, and insisted that he was going to spend the night in a basement.
With a bunch of girls.
“I’m sorry, what?” I said, doing a double take.
“Yeah,” he said, his tone as casual as a Blockbuster clerk calling to inform me that my videos were a day late. “So I won’t need a ride tonight.”
As a mother, there were many times I didn’t understand some of the words that came out of my son’s mouth. Things like “Mar-io” and “Poky-mans” and “internets.” But this was the first time I perfectly understood all his words, yet couldn’t comprehend what he was saying.
“Hold on,” I said, trying to gain my bearings. “When did this turn into a sleepover party? And wasn’t this a party for a girl?”
“Yeah, it was just kind of spur of the moment, mom.”
I didn’t believe that for a second.
“And yeah, it’s at her house. Everyone’s just going to hang out in the basement. It’s fine.”
I’ve always tried to be a reasonable parent. And this was no exception. Taking a deep mental breath, I prepared myself to get more information. That would determine whether I would get be the Cool Parent or have to assume the mantle of Tough-Love Mother.
“Let me speak to her parents,” I said. “I want to know who’s chaperoning this… sleepover.”
“Ummm,” Scott mumbled back. “Well, you can’t really. They’re upstairs.”
“Well then go upstairs and give them the phone.”
“Yeah, but, they’re kind of asleep.”
Parents asleep on two floors away. Fifteen year-old boys and girls alone in the basement. All night long.
“No!” I said into the phone. “You’re coming home now.”
“What?” His voice peaked several octaves higher through the phone. “Nothing’s gonna happen! It’s fine.”
“I’m sorry, Scott,” I said, feeling very little sorrow. “I’m not going to put you in that position.”
“What position? Everything’s fine!”
“Dad is on his way to pick you up now. Please wait for him and be ready to go.”
His next words weren’t words, they were just frustrated scoffs and grunts. When he spoke, it was hushed as if he’d moved away from the group.
“I can’t believe you’re doing this,” he said. “No one else is going home. This is ridiculous.”
There’s only one thing you can say as a parent in these kinds of situations.
“Sorry, I love you.”
And with that I hung up the phone.
When Scott came home later that night, he would not talk to me or even look at me. He just went straight to his room. It seemed the love, right then, was not being returned.
Even several days later, the cloud of a missed basement sleepover remained. Resentment lingered in the form of stink eyes and the bleeps and bloops of video games from behind his closed bedroom door.
But the months passed, bringing with them more birthday parties, driving classes, and more Nokia bills which now included Scott’s own phone. As time expanded, it slowly smothered out the small smoldering ember of resentment.
A year later, we could laugh about.
“Hey Scott,” I brought up one day while we were sitting together watching Saturday Night Live, as all the cool people do. “Remember when you wanted to sleep over at that co-ed birthday?”
“Ha, yeah,” he said with a chuckle. I was glad to see he’d finally come around, that he’d finally seen the parental-light and—
“You were totally wrong about that,” he said. “You definitely should’ve let me stay over.”
Be sure to check out the video for how we got from the first draft to the final one. There was a lot that we did, everything from fattening up some sections, to setting the tone, to firming up the voice, to showing instead of telling. Lots of great info for anyone looking to improve their own first drafts!
If you want to join us and help write a story by trolling in chat, or share your own writing for feedback, then we’d love to have you. We stream on Twitch every Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday.
And you missed the stream, you can still watch them on the YouTube channel or watch the full stream reruns.
Hope to see you next time, friend!
Featured image: Pakutaso