Sex and Drugs “To Don’t” List For Teenagers

My kids don’t do what I say. Especially in the morning before school (TMBS).

In TMBS they become spaced-out love children in the Haight circa 1969.

  • They get distracted by the way the light bends in from the skylight in our hallway.
  • They stand under it and stare as if waiting to be beamed up to the Mothership.
  • They have Shoe Amnesia. They don’t know where their shoes could be or even what shoes really are.
  • They stand in front of the bathroom sink and spit toothpaste into it over and over and over.
  • Their eyes are glazed, their lips drool, they run a low-grade Mommy Animosity fever.
Then something miraculous occurred:

I made a list on our white board. I listed all the things my kids needed to do before school with a line next to it they had to check off when the task was finished. It looks like this:

They freakin’ LOVE it. I don’t have to say anything. They get the glorious lack of the sound of my voice. And I get results. Who knew?

So then naturally my mind extrapolated another list. One they’ll need when they’re old enough to be tempted by sex and drugs. When they’re 35.

I have now devised a check list regarding sex and drugs:

C B

1. Refuse to have a boyfriend in high school because otherwise you’ll cry a lot. (See following To Do item.)

2. Do not climb out your bedroom window after Junior Prom to spend more time with your date Vanke Schmitzon (a pseudonym).

Because he will feel you up in Jerrald Prostate’s (also a pseudonym) jacuzzi; bring you home at 3 a.m. and your dad will be waiting in the Juniper bushes outside your bedroom window, possibly packing heat.

The last thing you will ever see of Vanke are the whites of his tennis shoes flying through the night as he hauls ass out of there.

He won’t pick up his prom photos. He might even transfer schools. (See To Do item above.)

3. Reject drugs of any kind or your father and I will send you to lockdown in Beatty, Nevada where you’ll get jobs cleaning the fryolator at the McDonalds off of Interstate 15!

In all seriousness, there are people out there who made the choice to take drugs and are living lives they may not be proud of.

4. Do not be charmed by a USC football player who, while he’s kissing you for the first time will say, “I can’t believe shit comes out of an ass like that.”

5. Do not then date him for five more years.

6. Realize that if you have sex with a man, you will think you love him even though he’s not nice enough to introduce to the warden of your local maximum security penitentiary.

7. Do not do drugs of any kind, or you will burn in everlasting hellfire and other demons will use you to roast their marshmallows.

sex and drugs
(Keep your shirts on, Gents. We’re not falling for it!)

(Yes I’m agnostic, but you get religion fast when it comes to kids and drugs — and sex for that matter)

8. Run as fast as you can away from firefighters who make passes at you.

Avoid watching them driving their fire trucks sirens blaring, sliding down fireman poles in their uniforms, rescuing people or knocking down conflagrations because that’s when they’re most addictive.

Remember they have groupies, and are more likely to suffocate from too much pusetita than smoke inhalation.

9. Avoid men with charming foreign accents, because they always end up putting a tube sock on their flaccid penis and hopping around your apartment pretending to be a bunny. 

10. Do not do drugs of any kind or your mother will move in with you, and make more To Do Lists.

(One caveat: You may drink a glass of wine a day after your children are born so you don’t leap out of your skin suit every time one of them bites herself, shows you the teeth marks and says her sister did it. Sorry Gina.)

If you do have real issues with addiction in your home loved ones should check this out.

14 thoughts on “Sex and Drugs “To Don’t” List For Teenagers”

  1. Elizabeth-Flourish in Progress

    This year, Cal turns 12. I was going to get her some books and maybe some games, but I think the smarter thing to do would be to give her a framed print out of this list. I may highlight and circle some things for emphasis.

    You are brilliant

  2. Shannon Bradley-Colleary

    Elizabeth — I'm happy to help in any way I can. If you decide to buy Cal a chastity belt could you pick a couple up for my girls too?

  3. I think we could be the same person, have dated the same men, and may have experienced the same experience with the hopping foreign guy with the sock stuffed down his tighty whities.
    Oh, and puseta is my new favourite word!

  4. Oh my gosh, foreign serial-socker guy! I knew him too!!!! But god, that accent. It almost made up for it.

    Also, one glass of wine after work each day is purely medicinal.

  5. Love your to-do list, but I see I am not the only one who noticed Clare seems a bit behind. That then begs the question, did Bridget really need the to-do list?

    I do remember dating this gal as a senior in HS who introduced me to her day, a military guy with obviously no sense of humor when it came to guys dating his daughter. I do remember some vague threat. Needless to say, she was home early.

    Oh, also, you are too young to have been hanging out in SF in 1969.

  6. I’m afraid you totally lost me after the firemen. Firemen without shirts. You posted a picture of firemen without shirts. My brain cannot process anything after a hot, steamy picture of sooty firemen without shirts. Sorry.

    As a parent and your friend, I do hope your kids avoid all the crazy shit you and I did (although I think you might have surpassed me). I have one who did (she’s a fundamentalist Christian), and one who opened both arms and screamed to the world, “Bring it on, Baby!” The crazy part is that I like both of my kids very much. I have totally different conversations with them, but they are such wonderful adults.

    All that to say that it’ll be okay either way. If they don’t then they dodge the bullets you and I took in the heart, but if they do (and live) they’ll have stories to tell and personalities that will be full of heart and mirth. Just like you.

    1. Hello Miss Chloe — Firemen without shirts makes it difficult to focus. Of course I hope my girls don’t have to make quite as many mistakes as I did, but basically I just want them to outlive me. That’s pretty much it. xo S

    1. Carolicious I really think they need to stock penis socks at Barneys. I think whoever gets that going’s gonna make a mint. Just no hopping. Please!

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