(1) Sidetracked

There’s at least one night in every teen’s life when you’re too lazy to go out with friends, only reruns flash on the TV, and the food stocked in the cabinets just isn’t that appealing anymore. Maybe it’s a school night when Mr. Hammond didn’t give you any biology homework, or the night before a huge party that you’re aching to go in order to see that special someone who sits behind you in Algebra.

Perhaps it’s a night when a date canceled, or a best friend is sick. Whatever the night may be, it suddenly hits you in the face and leaves you as bored as a kid watching grass grow.

There isn’t any way to prepare for it, no coping mechanisms. You just have to stare anxiously at the clock in your kitchen, waiting for the hours to pass, another part of an eager teenager’s life. It was such a night for me just last month.

I was sitting on the plaid couch in the family room, flipping from MTV to NBC to ABC to even the Disney Channel. It was just a lazy Saturday night so of course there was nothing. Just as I had clicked to a documentary on camels, my father bounded down the stairs, keys in hand and announced cheerfully that he had an urge to go for a drive in his car. He slipped on his faded brown top siders and asked me, eyeing the TV, if I wanted to join him on his little adventure. Glancing back at the camels, I opted for the drive, even if it was my dad.

As I hopped into the navy BMW, I looked up at the cloudy sky and decided it was a night for wasting time. It was time to go places a person would never admit going or even want to go on a regular time schedule. It was time for my dad and I to hit the town and live life to the fullest.

As my dad and I passed tons of stores, we decided to let the car and the road take us to where we were going. Breathlessly we waited for that certain place to suddenly sock us and cause my dad to slam on the breaks and turn into its parking lot.

Oh, the places we went that night, not a care in the world, no limited time. No place was too tacky and not worth entering. Pointless department stores, simply scary clothing stores that contained hardly clothes, over which we had to bite our lips to stop us from falling over laughing inside. We passed small hangouts for colorful, odd-looking people who smoked and stared at us suspiciously as we tried to make a solemn face.

The night was long and we both felt young, our only stop for reality being when we dropped a large, hot fudge sundae off at the house for my mother. I didn’t want it to end. It was kind of like when you help yourself to a large piece of chocolate cake but then need just one more tiny sliver to satisfy you just a little bit more after you finished the last huge, delicious piece.

My dad insisted on coming up with that last small sliver for the night. As he ran upstairs to give Mom the ice cream, he told me it would be a surprise. Having no faith that my dad would resist the image of his bed at 10:30, I was pleasantly relieved when I heard him say, “Back in a bit, Hon,” as he came back down the carpeted stairway. With my heart still beating with suspense, we jumped back into the Beemer and headed off for more fun.

It seemed like ages as we passed many stores, entered on the highway and suddenly entered a podunk town with peeling painted buildings and some of the street lights dimmed.

It began to rain and the splashes of the drops made the windows blurry. I looked questioningly at my father but he just patted my knee and smiled. Suddenly he turned into a parking lot of a restaurant called Sidetracks.

As we entered the doors he explained that when he and my mom were first married they had gone here to eat almost every day because just down the road was where my mom had worked. I glanced around and saw that the theme of a railroad station was everywhere. Lights flashed from blinking traffic lights and signs. Guys laughed noisily from the nearby bar and the waiters and waitresses sat talking on a stairwell in front of us.

One of the girls showed us to a table with two seats. Glancing at another table, I noticed a blond guy with a slightly oversized nose.

We ordered one of the largest plates of nachos I had ever seen with beans, chili, every kind of gooey cheese, peppers, and salsa with a dollop of sour cream on top.

While trying to make a dent in this monstrous pile of chips and toppings, my dad leaned over and whispered something about the guy in front of us looking at me. I laughed as I picked up a tortilla chip covered in chili. Outside the wind howled and lightening flashed.

“I really want the power to go out in here,” I tell my dad, smiling and thinking about the excitement a power outage would bring to the whole scene.

A couple of minutes later, lightning flashed again and the lights in the restaurant went out.

“Looks like you got everything you wanted out of tonight, Honey,” my dad said.

I smiled at him, thinking to myself that I really had gotten everything I wanted that night.

While sitting there, hearing about my dad’s past and having him tell me a guy is checking me out in the dimmed restaurant,
with a pile of nachos that I can’t possibly eat, I realized that sometimes staying home on a weekend isn’t that bad.

Sure maybe the guy sharing the nachos in front of me is my dad, but I realized, there’s always time to look at your busy teenage life and take the sidetracks for a night on the town with the friends who love you best; your parents.