There's Always Some New Low

I have taken to trying to get my kids' friends to laugh these days.  My children no longer find me amusing, so, I crack wise with their friends in the hopes that if my children are ever talking to said friend and claim that their mother is a Lame-O, that the friend will stick up for me and stay something like, "Oh, I like your mom!  I think she's funny!"

I'm not entirely sure, but I believe that this is the height of pathetic.

Late last night, at the corner of Lake and Lyndale, while waiting for pedestrians to clear the intersection, the comment, "OK children, count the drunk hipsters!" was given a healthy guffaw by my daughter's boyfriend.  That sort of thing is important to me, since if he wasn't in the car, my daughter would have likely rolled her eyes and muttered one of those "Oh-my-gawd-mother" things that she does to show how utterly retarded she thinks I am.

The boyfriend is also especially fond of my not-really-road-rage commentary involving other drivers being, ahem, assholes, morons, and/or idiots.  

My daughter finds this kind of talk annoying.

Whatever.

On the same car ride, different daughter, after being picked up from a party, commented that the hostess had a friend visiting from France and that the two of them spent most of the evening speaking to one another in French, a language not shared by any of the other party-goers.

Since I happen know the hostess and think the girl is the one of the most down-to-earth kids I've ever seen in a high school, the line, "Pretentious bitches!" was meant to be funny.

Sadly, none of that daughter's friends were in the car, so, that one fell flat.

The knife in the heart moment of the drive, after the boyfriend had been dropped off and it was just the siblings and me headed home, was when one daughter commented that she thought Top 40 disc jockeys on the radio were so mean compared to the jocks on the rock station.

Here, finally, was my undeniable area of expertise.  After all, I spent 14 years in the radio business, during half of which I was a night time jock on Top 40 stations.  I knew, without a doubt, the real answer to that question--hell, I'd been mean to at least a billion teenagers in those seven years, and I knew exactly why they did that: Because kids eat that shit up.  That's the truth, y'all.  The truth.

I waited for the children to look to me for an answer, thinking, any minute now they're going to turn to the expert, the one who used to do that for a living, and ask, "Mom, why are they like that?".

They never asked.

*sigh*

I would not be denied.  I volunteered my answer.  

Somehow, they were not impressed.  

How could that be?  14 years of my LIFE in that business, and I don't get to speak in defense of the craft of giving teenagers crap on the radio?

Now, somebody please explain to me why I'm so hell-bent on getting my kids acknowledgement, when if it were anybody else who didn't think I was interesting/amusing, I would have blown them off a long time ago?  Maybe I am as lame as they say.  I think I'll stick with the (easy) business of making their friends laugh and give up on these two deadbeats, entirely.