Supporting the rubber industry

There comes a time in the life of every conscientious parent (or one who stands in loco parentis) when action must be taken. Thus to last night when Andrew seemed unusually pleased with himself, after an evening spent with his girlfriend. I swear he exuded self satisfaction. As I said to Sonya later that evening, he had every appearance of someone who'd gotten lucky!

Perhaps it's too late; perhaps the horse has already bolted, but it seemed to me that perhaps it was time for concrete action. Thus to the supermarket this afternoon, to purchase the kind of thing that was once almost impossible to purchase without a marriage certificate.

Indeed, I remember once swaggering into the local chemist (pharmacy) to purchase a pack of the unmentionables. A young lady (this was about 1975 so she's most likely a grandmother by now) assisted me in my purchase. As I left the cash register the male chemist, a dour looking man in his late fifties, took me aside and requested that I make any further such purchases through him and not embarass the young lady.

I don't recall her being all that embarassed; certainly rather less than I was.

Now it's one thing to purchase em for ones own use; quite another to purchase them on behalf of ones underage stepson. Especially when it's not beyond the bounds of possibility that some moral simpleton may take both exception and action. It's no acccident that I'm very careful about certain things in this household.

On the other hand, we always have Morgan as the example, par excellence, of what can go wrong when one buries ones head in the sand. I discussed the issue with Sonya (he's her son after all) and she was in complete agreement with my proposed course of action.

So I took him aside after dinner, outside and just the two of us, and gave him a present accompanied by a very short speech. I wasn't particularly embarassed but I well remember being 17 years old. Indeed, I had the experience, as I've related before, of my mother taking me aside at not much older than Andrew now is, and her handing me a pack of the same items we're not talking about, with much the same speech. 'We're not encouraging you, Andrew, but we're realists. Take care.'

I give him credit; he wasn't much embarassed either and he had the grace to say 'thank you'.

I think he'll turn out just fine!