Will you be my Valentine because you won’t want to be the Valentine of the boy that lives at my house

Having a 14 year old boy live in your house is always an adventure.  Always.  The one that lives at my house truly gets straight As.  In all classes, even the ones he doesn’t care for – like gym and art.  You would think that makes him pretty smart – right?  Well, not if you judge him on his Valentine Day actions.

A little background – being 14, he’s not really allowed to date.  However, it’s rather difficult to stop him from liking a 14 year old girl at his school.  Over Christmas break, they were going to go to the movies.  At first, her parents said she could go but then they changed their minds and rescinded their approval.  They said she wasn’t mature enough.  Where they know of a mature 14 year old I’d like to know about…

Anyway, the week before Valentine’s Day, he asked me if we could stop at the store on our way to school that day so he could get her some flowers.  I don’t remember 14 year old boys being brave enough to give flowers to girls in public, on Valentine’s Day no less, so I said sure.

He got her carnations

Hang in there with me, here’s the good part, he gives her the flowers and she gives him a small gold box with notes in it and those little pastel candy hearts.  He supposedly tells her that he’ll read them when he gets home.  He makes that poor little girl wait all day!!!

But it doesn’t turn out that she has to just wait all day, it turns out she has to wait all day and part of the night.

The girl who lives at our house had a basketball game after school.  So we went to that and then on the way home we stopped at the pizza store because it was now 7 o’clock and we all know I’m not cooking.  The boy and I got home first because Ed and the girl had to stop at the school to drop some team mates off.

I expect the boy to immediately get the gold box from his bottomless backpack and rush upstairs to read the notes.  But no, he fires up our laptop.  I ask what he’s doing and he tells me that he is expecting to receive his new headphones via UPS and that he thinks they should be here any minute.  It’s already past 7 o’clock and I tell him there is no way they will still be delivered and that he should run upstairs and read those notes and text the little girl.

While I’m offering this brilliant advice, he’s in the foyer making sure the porch light is on.  Right away I hear the UPS truck.  Next I hear the front door open and close.  Now he’s back in the kitchen and opening up a box.  He taking stuff out and reading directions.

Ed and the girl arrive and we eat.  When we’re done, the boy goes upstairs, brown cardboard box in hand but no little gold box.

Gold Valentine Box

About an hour later I find him in his room with his new head phones and he’s syncing them up to his computer.  I ask about the gold box.  I tell him she’s probably been waiting for hours for his reaction.  He says she’s not like that.

Not like that?  ALL fourteen year old girls are like that!!!!!!   He tells me not to worry about it.  I’m worried alright; I have no intention of getting stuck with this kid for the rest of my life.  I’m counting on some girl to take him away just like I did for Ed’s mother.  What girl is going to do that if he can’t even open a Valentine in a timely fashion!?  How is this kid getting straight As???

I go back down stairs and he shows up 30 minutes later to watch the Daily Show with me.  I ask when he’s planning on reading the notes.  I get a blank look, then recognition dawns.  “Oh!” he says.  “I’ll go upstairs and do it now and come right back.”  He digs the box out of the backpack and sits on the couch.  “I thought you were going upstairs?” I say.  “Nah, I’ll just read them here so we can start the show,” he says.

Candy Hearts

Really?  They don’t even warrant a bit of privacy?  I guess I should be glad since he’s too young anyway, but REALLY?

He whips through them in less than 5 minutes while Jon Stewart is making fun of Mittens Romney.  “Are you going to text her?” I say.  “Later,” he says, “after Jon Stewart.”

Here’s what I picture: that adorable little girl calling all of her friends because she’s a nervous wreck for giving a fourteen year old boy notes that say (he let me read one) “I like how smart you are.”  I guess she now knows that’s NOT true and I guess it’s best that she find out now that boys are inconsiderate jerks.  I feel bad for her but I feel worse for me – how is he ever going to get a girl to marry him?