What Is It About Teenagers?

The "Nose" knows. (Click picture for larger image if you dare)

"Don't throw away your friendship with your teenager over behavior that has no great moral significance. There will be plenty of real issues that require you to stand like a rock. Save your big guns for those crucial confrontations."
~ Dr. James C. Dobson

This picture is not that good. It is an old picture I took with a 35mm camera and was scanned from a big memory scrapbook I made Nyssa for her 16th birthday. But this is for Vicki. In her post today she has a picture of her college bound TD with a finger stuck strategically up her nose. Until today, I thought that this was a strange affliction that I had only seen in Nyssa. True, it isn't her finger; in fact I'm not sure you want to know what it was nor does it really matter. She was so involved in what was on her computer screen that she did not even see me coming with the camera. I'm not sure she even realized what she was doing. I certainly hope that this is not a common occurrence in public places like the library although I have imagined it....Nyssa intent on a reference to Virginia Woolf, sitting in the Swem Library at William & Mary with the eraser end (hopefully not the sharpened end) of a pencil stuck oh so gracefully up her nostril. One can only hope there is not a photography student in search of a subject there as well.

This however, is a small thing. I've heard we are not to "sweat the small things" but personally I find it hard to do. So for the record, if Nyssa doesn't pick up the nasty and dangerous habit of smoking; if she stays away from the mind numbing alcohol and mind altering drugs; and if she conducts herself with the moral foundation I know I've given her, then she may put all manner of pencils, pens, plastic kaleidoscope rods or fingers up her nose. Just don't make me watch. (end of post)