20 Steps to a Teen's Epic Week

DISCLAIMER: Sometimes, I rather enjoy being an unconventional mom. Even when there are times, like last week, when it wears me the f*ck out. In fact, this post was to have been written last Friday, but I was too knackered to do it. So here 'tis now, though 'tis late.

20 Steps to Making Your Teens' Whole Week, Zoe-style:

1. Spring your 15-year-old, Desi, from his second day of 10th grade.

2. Liberate your 13-year-old Gabriel from his pre-first-day-of-eighth-grade required reading session. Who wants to read JOHNNY TREMAIN anyway? Not this guy:

3. Give 'em both some bogus reason like having to duck into Atlanta for some appointment on their behalf. Don't tell them until you arrive that your destination is the sidewalk in front of Criminal Records.

4. Enjoy their bafflement for a moment, then draw their attention to the sign in the window.

Yanno, the one that says #SPvsATL Round 3: The Signing 3 PM Today! Which explains why you've brought their homemade tribute Scott Pilgrim tee-shirts. Flash a grin as they hurriedly pull them over their heads.

5. Enjoy smug satisfaction that you're second in line. Especially when you know it's gonna look like this by 3:

Pic by Veronica Kai. And, yeah, it was that hot.

6. Watch your kid go from happy-to-sit-in-line to I'ma-kill-someone-with-this-if-we-don't-get-inside soon.

7. Make this face.

8. Then send boys inside to annoy Criminal Records staff by taking pictures of them setting up...

...and by indulging their strange fascination with Pocky.

Sigh. Yes, that's Dez's hand. Yes, he was so knocked out by GIANT Pocky that he had to offer said hand for purposes of scale.

9. Happen to spot your husband's cousin, Anthony, who works at Project 96.1.

Hi, Ant!!

10. Listen to boys squeal like teenage girls when Ant hands us three of these:

Except they didn't look like this, cuz those were for Boston, and we're in Atlanta. But three free advance screening passes!

11. Bless the air conditioning when we finally get to line up inside.

12. Try to keep your 15-year-old from hyperventilating when they actually MEET these guys in person:

Oddly, Michael Cera is much less Cera-ey in person. Schwartzman, on the other hand, is just as Schwartzy as you'd imagine.

13. Hitch a ride home on their cloud nine; listen to Dez's shocked tearfulness about how "JASON FREAKIN' SCHWARTZMAN" got up and hugged him as he hyperventilated, and G's excited chatter about how Edgar Wright gave him some backstory re: the 4 1/2 tee-shirt G had made. Grin at autographed shwag.

Gabriel lucked out into being one of only about 5 who got personalized autographs. Nice!

14. Spend Wednesday recovering, and posting crappy cell-phone vids, such as the moment when director Edgar Wright (SHAUN OF THE DEAD, HOT FUZZ) entered stage right.

15. And when Scott Pilgrim himself, one Michael Cera, finally stumbled in.

16. Thursday, give 'em two pistol fingers of triumph when they return from school MUCH COOLER than when they went. Yanno, cuz they each got to take a friend to the Thursday nite advance screening.

17. Smile as you hear them, from two rows back in the theater, singing along to The Clash at Demonhead (a.k.a. the real life band, Metric, whose Scott Pilgrim tracks they'd downloaded weeks before).

18. Leave the theater with four boys and a hubs still thrilling after a movie that went something like this:

19. Promise to take them to see it again this weekend; grin as hubs frames this and puts it with all the other strange art on our living room wall.

20. Finally, know that, as one cool-ass mom, you KO'd the HELL outta the week :D

Any questions?