Airing the big kid’s dirty laundry

JOSEPH N. BELL

The subject this week is how to deal with the problems that arise

when a child leaves home to make his or her way in the world but

returns periodically in the full expectation that nothing has

changed.

Our child happens to be 27, going on both 50 and 18, depending on where you catch him. Three of his plays have been produced to

critical acclaim, and he was among five playwrights recently

nominated for an Ovation Award for writing the best new play in Los

Angeles last year. But those achievements become irrelevant when he

comes home with dirty laundry in a car that looks like the “before”

picture in an auto body shop ad.

All of you with growing children will one day face this situation.

A few experiences from those of us presently caught up in it might

soften the adjustment by telling you what to expect. Take, for

example, last Monday. In the division of labor in our household, I do

the laundry. I’m not prepared here to debate the justice of that

assignment. We simply start with it as a given.

So on Monday, I took a load of dirty clothes to the garage where

we keep our laundry equipment. There I found the dryer full of our

son’s clothing. Erik hasn’t lived here since he went off to college,

but he stops by frequently to do his laundry. And eat. And sleep,

although I have often found him on his cell phone or hammering away

on his lap top at an hour when most industrious citizens are getting

up to prepare for the work day.

Erik was home, after a fashion, over last weekend, but he was long

gone to his place in Los Angeles when I discovered his clothes in my

dryer. So I asked his mother when she expected him back.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe Saturday.”

“I need to do laundry,” I said, “and his clothes are in the

dryer.”

She took this as a statement of fact and not an implied question

that required an answer or action on her part. In her system of

values, anything that could be construed as a criticism of the kid is

treated in one of two ways. If it is clearly legitimate, she responds

with silence. This means: “C’mon, this is no big deal. Live with it.

Get on with your life.” If, on the other hand, the criticism is

debatable, she defends him vigorously. Either way, I lose. I knew

that before I started the conversation.

So I took his clothes to the bedroom that used to be his,

wondering en route what he will wear meanwhile, since his entire

wardrobe appeared to be in this laundry. I also wondered if he would

return to reclaim his belongings before the arrival of out-of-town

guests who would be using his old bedroom in a few weeks. If he

doesn’t, we’ll have to move his clothes again, and God knows what

he’ll be wearing meanwhile.

While we’re waiting for a resolution of the laundry crisis, I’ll

have to deal with the telephone bill covering the last weekend Erik

was home. It was three times our normal bill, which shocked even his

mother. When she called him about it, she says he was penitent. She

explained to me that he was not chatting with old friends in faraway

places, but had simply plugged into the Internet on the wrong area

code so that many hours of work on his laptop were billed as

long-distance calls.

After his apologies, he told his mother there was a good chance

the next bill might be even higher, but he certainly would never make

that mistake again. When I heard this explanation, I was glad, for

family amity, to be getting it second-hand. And I had to agree with

his mother that requiring him to pay this bill in his present state

of poverty would be like trying to squeeze water from a rock. But

this won’t relieve me from awaiting next month’s bill with

trepidation.

Meanwhile, there is his car, a 1992 Toyota Camry with 135,000

miles on it that we have managed to keep running with loving care

from a local mechanic and funds from a second mortgage. This care has

preserved the soul but not the body his car shows to the world. There

are multiple bruises and abrasions that come, he tells us, from

scraping the walls of his Los Angeles apartment building while

backing out of a tight parking space.

This doesn’t explain his right front fender, which is held on

precariously by several yards of gray duct tape. Until recently, when

some unknown impulse moved him to empty it, the car interior

resembled a kind of mechanized grocery cart piled high with a mix of

clothing and manuscripts. Bumper stickers that sometimes cross even

my line of tolerance provide a signature to the picture. This car

parked in front of our house probably has a disastrous impact on

property values in the immediate area, although our neighbors have

been kind enough not to point this out.

There are other matters, like finding a common language, for

example. Much of this difficulty grows out of his changing lifestyle

in the subculture of Los Angeles, of which we have little direct

knowledge. We much prefer it that way, although we sometimes struggle

with the language. The words in Erik’s new life are the same he

learned at home, but the meanings can be quite different.

When, for example, he now says he’ll be coming in late, we still

think midnight rather than 3 a.m. or sometimes even later. But I have

to admit in a moment of flabby sentiment that losing a little sleep

-- and even boarding his laundry -- is really a small price to pay

for the unmitigated cheerfulness he brings into this household with

his dirty clothes, whenever he chooses to arrive.

That’s what you have to keep in perspective when you face this

period with children in transition. If they didn’t like to come home,

they could always find a Laundromat.

* JOSEPH N. BELL is a resident of Santa Ana Heights. His column

appears Thursdays.