Off the cuff stuff

Jan 9, 12:55 PM (ET)
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) - Jane Hambleton has dubbed herself the "meanest mom on the planet."
After finding alcohol in her son's car, she decided to sell the car and share her 19-year-old's misdeed with everyone - by placing an ad in the local newspaper.
The ad reads: "OLDS 1999 Intrigue. Totally uncool parents who obviously don't love teenage son, selling his car. Only driven for three weeks before snoopy mom who needs to get a life found booze under front seat. $3,700/offer. Call meanest mom on the planet."
Hambleton has heard from people besides interested buyers since recently placing the ad in The Des Moines Register.
The 48-year-old from Fort Dodge says she has fielded more than 70 telephone calls from emergency room technicians, nurses, school counselors and even a Georgia man who wanted to congratulate her.
"The ad cost a fortune, but you know what? I'm telling people what happened here," Hambleton says. "I'm not just gonna put the car for resale when there's nothing wrong with it, except the driver made a dumb decision.
"It's overwhelming the number of calls I've gotten from people saying 'Thank you, it's nice to see a responsible parent.' So far there are no calls from anyone saying, 'You're really strict. You're real overboard, lady.'"
The only critic is her son, who Hambleton says is "very, very unhappy" with the ad and claims the alcohol was left by a passenger.
Hambleton believes her son but has decided mercy isn't the best policy in this case. She says she set two rules when she bought the car at Thanksgiving: No booze, and always keep it locked.
The car has been sold, but Hambleton says she will continue the ad for another week - just for the feedback.

Yeah, Mom!! I think this is great news. If more parents acted this way, we'd have less teenage deaths from drunk driving. AND, we'd probably have less obnoxious teens wandering around.

Though I have to admit--I like teens. When I used to teach (about a million years ago), my favorite students were the 13-17 year old set. People complain about teens, but I find them fascinating. And a bit sad. They're struggling so hard to find themselves. But how do you find yourself when you're following the trends of others? And then, there are those hormones racing through you, causing you to just act badly. You can't control your emotions, your skin, your odor, your peers--horrible. Just horrible.

One thing teens can control are the decisions they make. Unfortunately, those decisions are often bad ones. I made bad choices and decisions during my teen years. Did you?

Hmmm...this would be one of those good questions for those folks who like to interview their characters during pre-writing. What bad decisions did you make during your teen years? What motivated you to make that decision? If you could change it, would you? Why? Why not?
How do you suppose that decision affects you today?

Other stuff:
I'm trying to blog more. (Lucky you.) I'm thinking, perhaps, if I had more structure to my blogs I'd have more posts. (If time permits, of course.) You know, like the Thursday Thirteen folks. (Hm. Maybe I should do THAT on Thursday. One day down, six to go...) I'll play around with ideas and post about it tomorrow. Hopefully.

Happy Snow Day New Englanders!
Cyn