Week 3: Revenge of the Zombie Teenagers

Wednesday, 8^th April 2020

I’ve debated whether it’s possible to have too much truth. And then I pondered on the possibility that you can have too much time on your hands. Now, I’m wondering if you can have too much teenager.

I can do lockdown. I have no problem at all drifting between some writing, some gardening, those small but overlooked DIY jobs that have been ignored because they were just too insignificant before a pandemic took over the world, some sandwich sudoku, the geisha puzzle, Instagram, Guardian news, the (poorly) translated Chinese romance novel that I am copy editing (sample line: ‘She felt love in her heart, ape and horse’), cooking, reading, and some indoor exercise.

In fact, it can add up to a pretty good day. Unfortunately, interspersed with all the aforementioned activities, I feel duty bound to try and get both my large teenagers out of their bedrooms, off of the sofa, and into the fresh, clean (never been cleaner) spring air.

‘Let’s do something,’ I’ll say to the youngest, still in his pyjamas at 3pm, just having eaten breakfast, and with the screen-haunted face of the juvenile gamer.

The reply is always one of the following:

1)      ‘Like what?’

2)     ‘I’m tired.’

The first reply means I have to list all the possible activities still permissible under the new police state and that also require him to get dressed and clean his teeth before dusk.

‘Well, we could go to the park with the dog and throw a rugby ball around,’ I suggest.

‘Not in the mood,’ he’ll say, eyes still glued to his American football team on Madden 20.

‘A bike ride over the Downs?’

‘Too tired.’

‘We could cycle to Brighton and use the outdoor table tennis?’

‘Too far. Maybe tomorrow.’

‘We could sit round on our arse in our pyjamas staring at re-runs of Friends on Netflix and playing the PS4 at the same time, whilst occasionally picking up our phone to send messages to our friends.’

‘Yep, that one,’ he’ll say, ignoring the heavy tone of sarcasm in my voice.

I will usually have to try this conversation several times until eventually I wear him down and he agrees to wash his face in time for dinner. Yesterday, when I couldn’t dislodge him from the sofa, I snatched the ipad and his phone as I went past and ran into the garden. We did a few laps of the house and garden before he locked one of the doors, forcing me down the side of the house and out through the side gate to the driveway. With him still chasing me, I had to run down the road with him flapping along behind me in his bare feet, pyjama bottoms and no top. It was only when I got onto the main road that he gave up. It’s not just Red Bull gives you wings; his techno-confiscation rage powered him quite some way.

The older one will emerge around late morning time before slowly making himself a breakfast that would shame Michael Phelps for its protein enormity. Then he will have a shower and go back to lying on his bed for hours, FaceTiming his girlfriend and avoiding downstairs unless he needs to refuel.

            On one of these refuelling sessions, I meet him in the kitchen.

‘What have you been up to?’

‘Bit of Spanish on Duolingo,’ he’ll say because he thinks that what I want to hear.

‘Good to keep busy,’ I say slipping into my default sarcasm. But he can’t hear me anyway because he’s put his headphones back in to hear what Joe Rogan has to say about the future of MMA or why he loves getting stoned in his hands-free Tesla as it takes him to work.

If it’s a ‘work day’ for Sol, then he usually takes it down a few gears to save himself for his 4:30 – 9pm shift down the coal pit, sorry, I meant shift at Waitrose. Admittedly, some of those Hove customers can get pretty gnarly if the shelves are emptied of goji berries and it would be utterly ridiculous for him to expend any kilojoules of energy, earlier in the day, by putting his plate in the dishwasher.

I keep repeating the same line to both of them: ‘It’s lovely outside.’ And this is met with silence and a blank look as they retreat with a bowl of mid-afternoon cereal to sit in a dark room and stare at their phones. Admittedly, the phrase ‘It’s lovely outside,’ draws a rainbow brush stroke over the fact that there’s a deadly pandemic on the loose and ignores the fact that you might get ‘re-directed’ home by the police if you look like you’re exceeding your daily dose of fun but we do have a garden to sit in. And some hammocks for the more adventurous.

Week 3: It's now officially Revenge of the Zombie Teenagers week. Although they are two large boys, I do still pretend that I am their parent by occasionally threatening to take away the PS4 controller, for instance, or turning off the internet and hiding the modem. This also gets a stock response: ‘I’d like to see you try…’ As I am still sporting a rather spectacular black eye, these threats have some substance. Unfortunately, for all their bluster and bravado, all I would have to do ‘to try’ would be to get up before midday to perform said actions.

And then hide…