I found raising a son less stressful than raising a daughter. Partly because they had different personalities and partly because my son hid some his escapades from me until he was older but there were exceptions. Take yellow snow, for example.

When hiking with his friends they had a typical trick which they indulged. First they would load up their canteens with Tang. When I first learned of this it seemed fairly innocuous. After all, Tang was a refreshing drink on the trail. Little did I know the inventiveness of teenagers!

Then they seemed to always rest near a fresh snowbank on a frequently traveled trail. Did you know that Tang sprayed on fresh snow has an interesting yellow quality to its appearance. It looks exactly like… uh, well, you get the idea.

The boys would wait for an obviously hot, tired and thirsty hiker to come by. Then the farce would begin. Very obvious and with exaggerated movements so that the hiker clearly saw where they obtained the snow.They would scoop up some of their Tang flavored yellow snow.

“Want some?” they would helpfully offer while eating the snow.

Invariable this produced a satisfying cringing reaction with a typical response, “Uh, no I’m, uh, fine. I, uh, think I’ll just sit over there and rest a bit.”

They got even more enjoyment from those which quickly, unthinkingly and enthusiastically accepted the snow to quench their thirst. As the light dawned on what they were apparently eating it seems (I’m told) that a myriad array of amusing emotions traveled across their face.

Disappointment only followed from those rare souls which nonchalantly accepted the yellow offering, thanked the boys and continued on their way.

As these thing go the yellow episodes were fairly harmless. Well, all the episodes were fairly harmless but some caught your attention more than others. Take powdred chocolate drinks. After a long day on the trail a nice cup of hot chocolate was refreshing. Never in a million years could I envision the uses that teen boys would make of powdered chocolate packets.

Somehow the boys learned (don’t ask me how) that if you emptied a packet of powdered chocolate into your mouth and then sprayed it out so that the powder hits your campfire it makes a wonderful flamethrower. Who knew that powdred chocolate caught fire!

I can tell you the first time I saw this it was a bit disconcerting to see these giant flames pouring out of the mouths of the boys sitting around the campfire. Like a clan of dragons breathing flames lighting up the camp the boys would sit around the campfire trying to outdo each other producing the biggest flame until all the chocolate packets were empty. Seldom did the chocolate packets last past the first night on the trail.

I told you boys were inventive.

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 30th, 2009 at 7:38 am and is filed under Humor. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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