Understanding the intricacies of the male teenage brain.

Equal to, yet not limited to, the size of the lobe in the female brain that controls the desire to SHOP, lays the lobe in the male teenage brain that controls GAMING. Specifically computer gaming.

The main difference however, is that well hidden in the female brain is a tiny, yet powerful area that allows the female to retain enough common sense and intelligence during frenzied activity in the Shopping Lobe, to multitask. We can be trying on 7 different pairs of shoes at one time with one eye, while simultaneously checking out both the bag AND jewelry areas of the store with the other eye. As if that's not impressive enough, while all this is going on, we're also figuring out how much this is all going to cost, where we'll hide everything, and how we can divvy up the final bill and spread it over several credit cards and/or accounts. It's an art. Hold your applause.

Fortunately for Mom's, teenage boys don't possess any of these skills (yet... oh who am I kidding?! Few grown men possess these either!) and trying to slip one by us just isn't going to happen. Their Gaming Lobe is so huge that the only other functioning areas left in their brains are the Eat Lobe, the Sleep Lobe, and the Sex Lobe. Not necessarily in that order. There's no room for common sense. And even less room for covering their tracks. They'd make lousy wild animals.

Which explains why, when I tell him that his computer needs to be off at midnight (and I check to make sure it is), and he's told VERY CLEARLY that the computer is to REMAIN OFF all night... I'm going to know if he snuck it back on the very second I went to bed.

Note to teenage son - if you get back up and go back on your computer, remember that I am female, hear me roar! And when I go into your room in the morning and find the speaker light ON (after I turned it off last night), and your microphone moved from the SPECIFIC POSITION I PLACED IT SO I'D KNOW IF YOU WERE BACK ON IT... you're totally busted. And don't bother trying that again because the modem has just become my new roomie at night.

The moral of this story is DON'T MESS WITH A WOMAN.

Learn it. Remember it. And never, EVER forget it. Or you'll never survive when you hit the real world.