Teens take a weekend away without mom to watch over
My sons experienced an important Guy Milestone last weekend:
They went on their first road trip. I’m so proud
… that they made it back alive.
This was the first time they’d ever been anywhere together
without me that was more than a half hour away from home. A
four-day trek to the wilds of Anaheim, where they attended an event
called BlizzCon.
Teens take a weekend away without mom to watch over
My sons experienced an important Guy Milestone last weekend: They went on their first road trip. I’m so proud … that they made it back alive.
This was the first time they’d ever been anywhere together without me that was more than a half hour away from home. A four-day trek to the wilds of Anaheim, where they attended an event called BlizzCon.
If you’ve never heard of BlizzCon, don’t worry. It is well known mainly in videogame geek circles as the ultimate experience – two days of talking about, hearing about and playing videogames made by Blizzard Entertainment, maker of the infamous World of Warcraft.
My sons had been talking about going to BlizzCon for at least a year. I really didn’t think they would. Somehow, they did.
First of all, there is the little matter of getting tickets to the thing. Tickets go on sale a few months before the event. The 20,000-some tickets for the event sell out within a matter of minutes.
I gave no encouragement and little advice on the matter, seeing as it was probably a statistical improbability that they would actually buy any tickets.
Amazingly, they obtained not one, not two, but four tickets to the event, seeing as they had two other friends who wanted to go.
So I was abruptly slapped in the face with the rude reality that they were actually going 300 miles away to the Anaheim Convention Center for some sort of wild videogame bacchanalia.
And darn it all, for every question I had, they had answers.
Where were they going to stay? With the family of a college roommate. How were they going to get there? One of the guys would drive his reliable four-door sedan. How would they find their way? Ross has one of those talking GPS things.
I still felt uneasy about the whole thing. It was a long way from home. No real “adults” would be in charge. They were going to Southern California, which always gives me pause, even for myself.
And then I realized that they weren’t little kids anymore.
My boys are ages 19 and 16. Both are good students, responsible and sober. I know their friends to be of a similar bent. I knew they weren’t going to deliberately get in any trouble, and they were old enough to be doing things on their own.
When I was 16, my parents were letting me go to concerts, go camping, and all kinds of stuff with my friends. I was traveling around quite a bit at that age and no one seemed to mind.
So I took a deep breath and decided to do likewise.
Still, the invisible umbilical cord is a tough thing to cut entirely. I asked for occasional phone calls with updates on their progress. They said okay. And off they went.
Of course, I still imagined the worst. None of it ever materialized. They had a wonderful time, aside from the fact that my older son, Ross, lost his cell phone there. They were in gamer heaven and enjoyed every minute of it, even the hour and a half spent waiting in line just to get into the place.
They saw Ozzie Osbourne perform. They played Starcraft 2 and other games that have not yet been released. They bought overpriced food. They got goodie bags.
In short, a raving success.
So why did I worry? Well, it’s my job, I guess. Isn’t that what moms are supposed to do?
