Boys Will Be Boys?

I know that whenever I have someone special visiting any of our events that there is always a good possibility that one of my teens will do something crazy. As I had my shadow friend, Tim, hanging with me for a week I knew that there would at least a couple of times that something off the wall would happen. So it is normal just to say boys will be boys when one of my guys does something totally off the wall?

I can remember as a teen doing crazy stuff that if I had gotten caught or my parents found out I would be ‘history’. I was either too smart to get caught or just blessed by God’s grace not to get my neck rung by my dad. Fortunately for most of my teen guys I have eyes in the back of my head I don’t want them to fall into the habit of doing crazy stuff on the edge that isn’t smart.

So we do church and go to McDonalds afterwards to hang out and be able to talk. I know that the manager has a heart for my kids and will actually help a few of my teens get a job. One of my teens is fortunate to have one of our laptops that he is using and abusing a little. I know that there is always a chance that one of my Hispanic guys will bug an African American guy or vice versa. So as this one teen, who was staying at his Aunt’s house, brings his laptop, which is a no and leaves it out while he is in line. So the plot unfolds.

I didn’t see this but can imagine how this happened. One of the more creative teens sees the laptop abandoned on the table and asks my wife if it is ok to get it. She obviously says yes and the two I am sure have that look in their eyes like we are going to teach this guy a lesson. So clearly the young teen is led astray by the older so the younger guy stuffs the laptop in his pants and runs into the bathroom. I didn’t see anything of this but now hear the laptop owner crying, not really, about his laptop disappearing and blaming this one other teen for taking it.

I know that this isn’t a crisis but can turn into a mess with the laptop teen, who is loud, raising his voice and getting mad at these guys for playing a joke on him. I see the older teen and give him the eye and ask what happened. He gives me the line, like usual, I don’t know. I know he knows exactly what happened and I make him take me to the younger guy who has this large bulge in his shorts. He quickly takes it out and returns it to me. I return it to the real owner and then tell the two culprits that wasn’t a great thing to do and ask for them to leave and skip dinner.

I get a loud complaint from the older teen that was the real instigator like I am this mean cruel guy that purposely goes out of my way to attack him. We text/talk for a little and I quit and say we will talk after school the following day. I know this may sound like a silly story but under different circumstances this could have turned into a real fight where someone would have gotten hurt and been taken to the hospital.

I do enjoy at times playing practical jokes on people and see that it can cause heartache with some. What I did talk to the guys who were the practical jokers about is how it is easy to pick on someone who is different, racial background, misfit type or…. Yeah, boys will be boys but it isn’t ok when the boys turn into grown men who can become rather cruel in their practical jokes. So I know that this helped my friend who was shadowing me for the week to see that I live in the real world and face the same issues he saw while in the Navy or as he will discover in his new home in the hood.