Teenagers.

My body, she isn't eighteen anymore. Someone should tell her she can't work like she's eighteen again.

I tag-teamed Saturday's mulch expedition with another truckload on Sunday. By last night, I was sitting on the coach in a fatigue-induced stupor. My husband did more physical labor than I've seen him do in a few years. He decided to do a project involving cutting and laying 200 lb. slabs of stone for steps into our garage. So he was no better off than me by bedtime.

I was sitting there, staring at the TV but not comprehending anything, when a tiny voice next to me said "What are you eating, Daddy?" I looked down, confused. It was Cooper. I looked up at the clock. It was 9:00.

My husband and I both looked at each other and realized we had forgotten to put Cooper to bed. We were that tired.

Earlier in the evening, as the pain from the weekend was setting in, I called our local Jimmy John's. I figured I could have some sandwiches delivered, that way we'd all eat and I wouldn't have to cook. A win-win.

The kid who answered the phone sounded to be about sixteen years old. Here's our conversation, K is for Kid at Jimmy John's:

H: Hi, do you deliver?
K: Uhh... yeah.
H: OK, can I place an order for delivery?
K: What's your address?
H: {Gave him my address}
K: Uhhh...where is that?
H: It's over by X School. You know, if you take X street to Y street, it's right there.
K: Uhhh...hang on a second...{seventeen minutes pass by with me on hold ~ I almost forgot why I was holding}
K: I think that's out of our delivery zone.
H: Oh, ok.
K: That might be in the Brentwood zone.
H: Oh, is there a store in Brentwood?
K: What store?
H: A Jimmy John's? Is there one in Brentwood?
K: I don't know.
H: What?
K: Huh?

I hung up. I mean, I thanked him, and then I hung up.

I think he was a mouthbreather. There's a physiological phase all teenage boys go through where they become mouthbreathers. They stare at you with their mouths gaping open...breathing. When you ask them questions, their faces register shock and confusion, the neurons desperately firing to figure out what it is you're asking of them.

It's sad, really. That period of time in a boy's life. My own sons will go through it, of that I am sure. I just hope it's a short-lived phase.