Real World Smackdown

When I was growing up, my dad would sometimes spend Saturday afternoon watching "Wrasslin'". Back then, "pro wrestling" was made up of men like Dusty Rhodes and Nature Boy Rick Flair. It wasn't as glamorous as it is today - no laser light shows or pyrotechnics. Just big, ugly guys with bleach blonde hair wearing giant BVDs and mugging for the camera. My younger sister took an interest in watching wrasslin' with dad and the two of them would sometimes form a tag-team and "pin me" whenever I smarted off about their interest in this ridiculous psuedo-sport.

Unfortunately, watching Andre the Giant and Hulk Hogan taught my little sister a thing or two. More than once she body slammed me, putting me and my smart mouth in my place. So when she and dad decided to go see the traveling wrasslin' show at the local high school gymnasium in 1978, I kept my mouth shut.

I may have gotten a smack down from time to time by my Roddy-Piper-loving little sister, but those kind of sleeper holds pale in comparison to real life, which can show no mercy. As my stepson learned yesterday.

As a mom, you just gotta love seeing your teenagers come smack up against the real world. Not that I don't love my stepson, but a reality check helps build maturity. Yesterday, he took his truck in for an oil change and service. Now this a truck that his dad and I bought him - for which he's supposed to be making payments to  us. Which is kinda difficult when you don't have a regular job, you sleep until noon and fish the rest of the day.

But I digress.

The truck is old and had been sitting for a while when he got it. So it is no surprise that it needed filter changes and a tune up. But when my son got the $153 bill for what he thought would be a $19.99 oil change (gotta check the fine print in those ads), he was beside himself. He came through the door with a look of shock on his face and spent 20 minutes ranting about how dirty the filter was and how the transmission fluid had started to congeal, etc, etc and how much it cost to get everything cleaned-up.

I was enjoying the irony of the fact that he was complaining about having to spend $153 on a car that so far he had enjoyed for free, that I forgot to lecture him on the cost/responsibility of owning and driving a vehicle. The entire time he flailed about, writhing in agony over the cost of his tune-up, I just pictured the great Dusty Rhodes hovering over him on the ropes, ready to pounce.

Bam! Real Life Kid! That's gonna leave a mark.