Mom, Everything's Okay, but...

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I’m going to form a support group. “Parents of Teenagers” or “POT” for short. We’ll even set up a hotline for those times when your teenager seems suicidal because he keeps doing things that he knows will make you want to strangle him. 1-800-HELP-ME.
This number could also be used for those questions that are always in the back of my mind, such as “Does a black hole really exist in my daughter’s bedroom?” or “Why do we keep finding the hand soap in her room?” We don’t ask her anymore. We just give her a strange look as we take the hand soap and return it to its home, knowing it will end up back in her room for some secret governmental science project that she’s working on.
Maybe the hotline could be used to answer questions about how to get the stains out of her carpet. So far, the list includes red and orange paint, corn syrup, blue food dye, fingernail polish and remover, and let’s not forget the soot stain leading to her balcony door from the fire.
Fire, you ask? Oh that’s another story.
Perhaps to celebrate our anniversary, my son set the second-story balcony on fire. Not on purpose, mind you, but still, it burned. It was my second week on a new job, and I get a phone call from my son.
“Mom?” he says. “Everything’s okay.”
I’ve lived with him long enough to know it isn’t.
“We put the fire out,” he continues.
I sit down hard at my desk and try to breathe.
“I accidentally set the balcony on fire.”
Of course that makes everything okay, because it wasn’t intentional. I find my voice.
“Is it out?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, Mom.”
“What happened?”
“Well, I was playing around with candles.”
“Candles?”
“Yes, but I got Grandma out…”
“Are you sure it’s out?”
“Yes, Cindy put it out with the hose after I jumped off the balcony and ran in to get Grandma out of the house.”
“What?” Brain overload. Circuits breaking.
“Grandma was in the bathroom, and I told her the house was on fire and we needed to get out first while Cindy called 911.”
“911? Did they come?”
“No, Cindy called to cancel after we put the fire out.”
“Are you sure it’s out?”
“Mom…” Now he’s trying not to sound annoyed, because even he knows this is not the time.
“What did Grandma do?”
“She didn’t want to come outside because she was in her nightgown, but when I told her the house might burn down, she let me help her out.”
“Okay, so that’s the first good thing I’ve heard. You used your head. But…wait a minute. How did you say this happened? What were you doing with candles?”
“Well, I was doing an experiment.”
“With candles?”
“And gas.”
“Gas?”
“Mower gas, And oil.”
Over the next few days, I asked him several times, “What were you thinking? I just want to know your thought process. I want to know every step behind you actually going to the shed to get this flammable material to play around with on the balcony.”
He kept saying, “I don’t know what I was thinking.”
So I responded each time, “Son, if at any time you don’t know what you’re thinking, please stop what you’re doing immediately. Promise me.”
After I arrived home that afternoon and surveyed the damage, I decided to risk going out for our anniversary dinner. I called my husband at work and told him about the whole mess, then drove to meet him at our favorite restaurant. I drink alcohol maybe once or twice a year. When I walked into the restaurant, he had a drink waiting for me. I love this man.
Every day, when I call home, I ask my son, “Have you set anything on fire?” He used to be offended, but sometimes he even calls me with the news. “Guess what, Mom? I didn’t set anything on fire today.”
Now, about that support group…​