Karl

Teenagers today get so much bad press. I get to hear that they are good for nothing junkies, they are violent and can be deadly. I don't have much contact with teens, and I kind of tend to stay away from them anyway. What the perfect body projection of nowadays... I'm better off away. But I had such a pleasant surprise yesterday. It filled my heart just like a cell phone's top up card. Better than that. Maybe I should have known. Because a sweetheart can only produce... another sweetheart. So I am at my friend's house, and her 15 year old son suddenly saunters in. Me.. I freeze and expect the worst. He's a good-looking guy with a smile to melt anybody's heart, now he'll start sniggering. Not so. He does smile, but it's such a heartwarming smile I am taken aback. He's just 15 and he hugs his mum and calls her his beauty. So strange. He makes himself a drink and asks me in an I-really-want-to-give-you-a-drink, if I want anything. And he means it, somehow I know he does. And he sits down with us old hags (sorry Jo), and talks to us. He talks to me as if I were his friend. No this isn't happening. But hello, it is. And he makes me laugh with his boyish looks, and the way he keeps touching his hair. And he talks about his life, about his hobby, his education in the most natural way. He's outgoing, but polite. Not stuffily polite. He tells me about the girls! And I find myself laughing. Me? laughing with a 15 year old I've just known for 15 minutes. And I find myself feeling so comfortable, it's as if I've known him all my life. But then the same thing happened when I met his mother, who looks like his sister. This is intriguing, his mother kept badgering him to go take a shower. I just loved talking to him so much, good thing he didn't obey her on the spot (sorry Jo). And I watched him go about, he took empty glasses from the table and put them in the sink, he made himself a sandwich and cleaned up all the crumbs. He also promised his mother he would take down the clothes from the washing line. A 15 year old? And he told me about his friends, his female friends who scream when they realise that his mother is on TV. He asked me about myself, not just in a how-are-you and I don't expect an answer way. This young guy is the man of tomorrow. Such an impish smile for girls to fall in love with too. You've done a brilliant job Jo. Now if only I had a 15 year old daughter....