Despite the hair comment, on the advice of all of our friends and fellow parents, Mrs. P and I swallowed hard and put our 13-year-old daughter on a bus last weekend for a two-week stay at band camp. (Truth be told, our daughter swallowed a little hard, too, though she’ll never admit it to her fellow 13-year-olds.)

But when the door eased shut and the bus made that Tshhhh sound it makes before it pulls away, I suddenly realized that for the next two weeks our teenager will have to remember when to eat every day. She will be forced to remember to shower without being told. She’ll have to get up for 12 straight days without benefit of her mother or I being there to shout at her when she DOESN’T get up to the sound of the alarm like she’s done for the last 353 days of the year. She’ll have to practically be a grown up, which is, I guess, what scares me most.

Before she left last weekend, Mrs. P and I sat our oldest daughter down to go over a few of the rules we expected her to follow while she is away with 1,000 other teenagers. They say it’s a controlled situation, but exactly how do you have 1,000 teenagers AND control?

Anyway, the rules:
Stay with others. Other girls, to be precise.
No swimming an hour after you eat.
No close dancing.
No far away dancing.
Don’t look at any boys.
If any boys look at you, put on that habit I rented for you. 

“In other words,” I summarized as Mrs. P finished, “if it’s not asking too much, we’d prefer it if you didn’t have very much fun — at all.” And then it was our daughter’s turn to assure us that everything was going to be OK. We didn’t say anything as she pleaded her case. But Mrs. P and I compared mental notes later and determined that we had been thinking the same thing as she talked.

“Mom. Dad,” she said. “I’m 13-years-old.” (And we’re supposed to be comforted by this?)

“I’ll be fine.” (Oh, NOW we feel MUCH better.)

“Don’t worry.” (Come back home in two weeks with no tattoos and we’ll be worry free.) I had been lectured enough. It was my turn.

“Keep your seat on the bus and don’t stick your head out the window to show your friends how funny dogs look when they’re in a pick-up,” I told her. I felt better. No, I felt worse that I even had to mention this.

The morning the bus left, I felt it necessary to impart on my daughter some of my worldly wisdom.

“We need to sit down and talk about how you to use your phone card,” I said.

“Dad, I know how to use a phone card,” she insisted.

“There’s the 800 number,” I pointed out, ignoring her. “When it answers, you enter the pin number, which you’ll find if you take a penny and scratch off this stuff right here.”

“You scratch that stuff off?” she said. “I thought that’s where I signed my name, like on a credit card.”

“Ah HA!!,” I said. “You’re NOT as smart as you think you are!!”

Our brief instruction session was over. Apparently, it took, because she called us successfully later in the day to announce she had arrived safely at camp.

The morning she left, it was voted that I — being the representative from the house least likely to cry — would be responsible for making sure she got on the bus that morning.

So off we went, as Mrs. P stayed behind in her emotional shambles. When we walked up to the bus, I was approached by someone who identified herself as my friend.

The woman, who has a son in the band, made little wisecracks about having seen the driver of my daughter’s bus on a Most Wanted poster, while she vaguely recognized the driver of her boy’s bus as being a faithful member of her church choir.

I was approached by another couple I’ve known for many years. Both of their kids would be going to band camp this year and they announced — beaming like newlyweds — that they would have the house all to themselves for two whole weeks.

People are SO RUDE these days.

I tried to talk them in to taking one of our kids for two weeks so we’d both have one each and so they wouldn’t forget how to parent. They said they had better things to do for the next two weeks. Wonder what they mean by that?

In the 20 minutes that I waited for the bus to pull away, I was forced to return home for not one but two items, which didn’t go terribly far toward easing my mind about our daughter’s readiness for such a trip. “Dad,” she said, “I forgot my CD player. Can you run home and get it for me.”

“Sure sweety, anything you say.”

“And while you’re there, can you get my medication.”

Nice to know her priorities are in order.

I returned just in time to see her wave at me as she boarded the bus. As she turned and walked inside, I walked toward my car and my so-called friend said, “I’m not sure but I THINK your daughter got on the boy’s bus by accident.”

I grinned real big. “She’ll be fine. Especially since your SON just snuck through the back window of the girl’s bus.”

I returned home, and Mrs. P was wiping the last tear from the corner of her eye.

“She’s gone,” I said.

OK, so it wasn’t the LAST tear.

“You think she’ll be all right?” Mrs. P asked me.

“She’ll be fine.”

“I miss her,” Mrs. P said.

“Me too,” I admitted.

A quiet moment passed as we contemplated the next two weeks and our
daughter’s safety.

“How long do you think it’ll be before she calls and asks for more
money?” Mrs. P asked.

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