Caught in moment of weakness – but who’s the real sensible one?

HE MUST HAVE caught me in a moment of weakness. Either that or I was under the influence, because how else would I have agreed to have a party for a gang of teenagers in my house? But I did. I told The 15-year-old that he could have a birthday party and invite all his friends. Yeah, sure – the more the merrier! Of course as soon as I said Yes, I regretted it, and set about trying to implement some level of control over the whole thing on the off chance that I could persuade him that pass the parcel and musical chairs weren’t as lame as they sounded.

So no party games then. Well not of the kind that I’d approve of anyway. No they just wanted to congregate in our house, play music, eat pizza and... hang. What does that even mean? ‘Why don’t we have a barbecue then?’ I suggested, brightly thinking I could kill two birds with one stone – get them all out of the house and also keep an eye on them.

The 15-year-old wasn’t overly keen but eventually agreed on the condition that we leave them alone for a couple of hours during the party. I told him we’d pop over to the neighbours for a while, knowing full well I could hear any unacceptable noise from there and be able to make it back to murder them in about ten seconds flat.

Himself spent hours doing the garden in preparation, cleaning the barbecue, sweeping the decking and stacking up logs in the outdoor fire thing. I bought enough burgers to feed the whole of Electric Picnic, only to be told the morning of the party that, no, The 15-year-old didn’t want a barbecue after all, they’d just have pizza. Grrr.

And so at 6 p.m. they started to arrive. I had been warned to reign in my usual exuberance and so had my best ‘Mammy’ face on and welcomed them all warmly. For some reason, the girls just muttered under their breaths, running away from me as fast as their spindly little legs could carry them. The boys, in fairness, made some attempt at conversation. ‘Howaya Mrs Dwyer. How’s it goin’?’ before diving on top of each other in some strange male teenage ritual.

Ten minutes. Ten minutes they lasted in the garden before declaring it too cold and heading inside. ‘Sure why wouldn’t they be cold and the girls wearing half nothing,’ said Himself, disgusted that the fruits of his labour had been abandoned.

We left them to it, returning a couple of hours later to find half of them huddled up on the sofa watching Keeping Up With The Kardashians and the rest of them in the garden playing swingball. ‘Jaysus, they’re a bit boring,’ I said, grabbing a bottle from the fridge and making my way out to the garden to turn on the music.

‘Youngsters these days don’t know how to enjoy themselves,’ mused Himself, as he cranked up the volume on 80s Gold. We were still going strong at 3 a.m. when The 15-year-old told us to cop on and go to bed.

Thank God someone in this house behaves like a responsible adult!

AS SOON AS I SAID YES TO THE 15-YEAROLD HAVING A PARTY HERE IN THE HOUSE I REGRETTED IT