As promised, I will now share how we were greeted upon arriving at our beach villa last week.
Since we are both moms with teenagers and we each have a son, we are always watching how the high school and college students behave in public.
We do find it fascinating to see how they act once they are “free” of the watchful eye of their mothers and fathers. We can’t help but wonder if our kids will be these kids we’re watching in a few years.
Just a refresher first about my girlfriend retreat last week.
Ann flew in to Atlanta from Illinois and we drove to Destin, Florida which is my very favorite beach. As much as time flies in the car as we talk non-stop, we were both tired and it was past midnight when we arrived at our beach villa.
We pulled up and turned the car off. Our unit was dark but the unit next door had the outside light on and two young men were standing at the door talking to young girls inside.
As we gathered our purses and looked for the envelope with the keys, we looked up to see one of the young men “drop his drawers” and was standing in his boxers. We both laughed and found the villa keys. Oh, the wild abandonment of youth.
We were about to get out of the car when the young man dropped his boxers and proceeded to moon the girls inside their villa.
What College Boy #1 didn’t realize was that he was facing our car under the bright porch light which means we were getting a full view of his frontside.
The girls shut their door at this point which we thought was a good decision on the girls’ part. College Boys sauntered into the parking lot near our car. As we got out to get our luggage, they very politely approached our car and College Boy #1 said “Ladies, as a fellow VW bug owner, can we help you with your luggage?”
Ann replied in a terse voice, “No thanks, we’ve got it.” She proceeded to hoist her giant suitcase out of the trunk and started wheeling it towards our villa.
Dang, I was tired and the car was loaded and I definitely wanted some help. Ann is usually more sociable than that.
I countered with, “YES, we’d love help with our luggage but only if you can keep your pants on.”
College Boy #1 a.k.a. The Flasher feigned embarrassment and said “Oh my gosh, did you guys see that? Oh man, are you serious?”
He might have had a few drinks – just my observation as a non-drinker.
I really wish I could have a little sound bite here that you could click to hear Ann’s voice when she whipped around and said,
“HELLO, we saw your WIE#%R.”
It really went downhill from there. College Boys didn’t realize they were in the presence of two moms who could more than hold their own with the back and forth that transpired. It’s hard to shock a mom of four and a middle-school teacher.
In their mom’s defense–and I don’t even know their moms–they apologized profusely, carried in all our bags, cooler, cookies that PhilBillPaul baked for us (Yes, you read that right – I’m telling you he’s nice like that) and apologized some more.
We think they would have sat down and visited with us but we gave them some cookies and sent them on their way. But not before Ann grabbed her camera and took pictures.
Unfortunately, I didn’t think quick enough to ask them to sign a photo release. Maybe because I really didn’t think about posting this story at the time. Even though I’m not comfortable posting their pictures, I will tell you their first names; Jake (flasher) and Chad (sidekick).
I didn’t let them leave without asking a couple of important questions as a service to all the moms out there. This is valuable information whether you have a son and you want to know if he’s doing this and of course, if you have a daughter, you can warn her about the likes of Jake and Chad.
Q: Did you know those girls?
A: Nah, we just met them on the beach today.
Q: Is this a new strategy in the dating game?
A: Huh?
Q: I mean you just met them earlier today and you just show them your WIE#%R and you get a date?
A: Not really but I was just showing them my great butt – you all weren’t suppose to see my WIE#%R.
Q: So do you think you’re going to score with them tomorrow?
A: Chad (who did not show his private parts) said “No, I don’t have any game so I never score.”
Final comment I couldn’t resist,
“Gosh Ann, back in our college days, we had to at least dance a few songs first, didn’t we?”
JUST KIDDING, MR. & MRS. JONES (Ann’s parents – in case they’re reading this)!!
Here are pictures of the beautiful beach and the boys from afar with their group of 10 buddies who all came to Destin from LSU.
Chad came over and talked to us the next day. It was no surprise that Jake was busy with a fascinating drinking game on the beach involving drinking alcohol from a plastic baseball bat and spinning around till they fell down.
Our observation was that Jake was really the one with no game and back in the day, we both would have danced with Chad. 😉
On a final note, Ann and I both have WIE#%R dogs and for some reason, this made us laugh the whole time we were at the beach. Because frankly (oops, no pun intended) it takes very little to amuse us and we still think WIE#%R is a funny word. We refuse to grow up to be old, grouchy women. We prefer to be old, funny women who never stop laughing.
If you could have heard Ann squeal at Jake that she saw his, you would have laughed like I did. It was a classic one-liner that we’ll probably still be repeating it when we’re both 82 and sitting at the beach on our annual girlfriend retreat.
You’re laughing now, aren’t you? Oh come on, laugh – it’s good for you.
Life Lesson (LL): Mamas, you gotta let ’em go and hope they keep their pants on in public. But when you let them go, remind them that even when you’re not there, somebody else’s mom is watching!
Share a Life Lesson (SALL): Any good stories you can share about observing our next generation of leaders in social settings?

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