"Who are you and what are you doing in my house"?

Years ago, the ten o'clock news would begin their broadcast with the phrase "It's ten o'clock, do you know where your children are"? As a father of a fifteen year-old boy I not only can answer that question with a firm "yes", but I can also account for every like-aged child in our neighborhood.

My house is the central meeting point in our neighborhood. Teenagers dash through our doors like a Springsteen concert offering festival seating. Amazingly, my wife is able to identify 90% of our inbound and outbound traffic (a dizzying blur of hair, jeans and t-shirts), the rest are transient beings who are likely a friend of a friend of a friend of one of our regulars. Me, I couldn't pick most of them out of a line-up, although some look like they might have that experience in their near future.

Along with the constant flux of high school freshmen, we also have a core group who are convinced that they live in our home. A bag of Doritos of a box of cookies don't stand a chance when these guys are around. Their consumption of food and soft drinks rivals that of a small county. Empty wrappers, bags and cups litter our den nightly, looking not unlike the streets of New York after Lindbergh landed. Next year I am writing this posse off as a tax deduction.

The posse always stays overnight although their is no parental authorization on our end. Afternoon turns into evening and evening turns to night and still they linger. When I walk down our stairs in the morning on the way to work our den looks like the aftermath at Gettysburg. Wading through the humanity strewn all over the floor, I often hum the "Battle Hymn of the Republic" quietly to myself, being careful not to awaken the troops. One morning I was greeted by a young girl who was watching MTV in the den as the masses slept. She introduced herself as "Alexis" and assured me that she had escaped an all-girl sleepover down the street, seeking the quiet of another venue. Barely awake, I wished her a good day and toddled off to work not even considering whether she had been there all night or not.

The boys have sort of a set routine when they gather at my home. First they play "Slam Ball", a basketball hybrid game played on a trampoline, which makes me extremely nervous. A temporary basketball goal is set-up next to our battered trampoline and the combatants bounce, leap, push and fight through a one-on-one game. If my insurance agent ever caught wind of this activity he would beat me over the head with my canceled homeowners policy until I was dead.

Next comes the electronic part of the evening. Two of the gang begin playing XBOX 360, one gets on the laptop and is in direct communication (through AIM) with whatever posse member might be grounded or missing (or they are online with the girls down the street), the remaining troops work the cellphones and the frig. Last night the gamers were locked in a war simulation battle with some bloodthirsty Swedish speaking teens (aren't they supposed to be neutral?), who massacred our boys on-line then taunted them in Nordic. It amazes me that boys all over the world can give each other crap without even leaving their homes (or in this case MY home). I guess that is what they call progress.

Finally, a lively Madden Football game is played on the XBOX to determine the sleeping arrangements. The winner gets the couch, runner-up the recliner, and the rest are rug fodder.
By 4am most of the group is sleeping, unless someone has slipped by the guard. Shiloh, our blind, diabetic beagle-mix usually patrols the downstairs and howls at anything that moves, preventing anyone from escaping undetected. However, Shiloh does require some down time which creates a window of opportunity. My son and his buddies once snuck past our defenses and would have completed their mission if it weren't for a young girl's mother who awakened me with a 3am phone call asking why my son was making eggs in her kitchen. My first reaction was "He knows how to make eggs"?, my first action was to round up the escapees and return them to lock down.

Most parents would enjoy the security of knowing where their children are, unfortunately none of them live in my neighborhood.