Combating the dreaded teenage eye-roll

Sean Pearson

Not too long ago, my 17-year-old son let me know very clearly that he was getting pretty tired of having to ask all his friends to borrow their cell phones to get ahold of me.
Surprisingly enough, I actually had no idea just how uncaring and insensitive I was being. My first reaction was to remind him that both his mother and I had, in fact, survived many years of life outside the home without the convenience of a cell phone. Apparently, he wasn’t impressed.
And my suggestion that he locate a landline somewhere in the building, or – heaven forbid – use a pay phone, was met with an especially exaggerated eye-roll.
(If you have teenagers, you know quite well this eye-roll of which I speak.) For example, in much the same way that old Scandinavian tribes often use gestures as a means of nonverbal communication, a 14-year-old female can say many different things with an eye-roll.
While one ocular gyration can simply mean, “Dad, you’re goofy,” another  seemingly similar axial rotation can indicate a pervasive and somewhat life-altering sign of mortified embarrassment.
(The above-referenced gesture can also be observed in older subjects, to wit: a spouse’s eye-roll after having read about the disclosure of back hair in a previous Spiew.)
(Not that I’m making any veiled reference to the age of my spouse – or anyone else’s for that matter.)
(I may run out of parentheses soon.)
Some people even believe their pets can adequately pull off the eye-roll gesture. I’m not convinced. If I see my dog’s eyes rolling in his head, I’m probably going to assume that he ran into the glass storm door again, and not that he is expressing his disappointment in my kibble choice.
I could be wrong.
Nevertheless, there are a variety of subtle nuances to the eye-roll, and frankly, I don’t really understand very many of them. I thought I had developed a relatively adequate and plausible theory to the eye-roll having watched both my sisters perfect it over the years. Alas, these nuances apparently don’t cross over state lines. Or maybe it’s an age issue. (Like I’m not gonna pay for that one with a punch to the stomach from my older sister.)
For the most part, I just give up and leave it to my wife to figure out. I  think she secretly enjoys teen angst and thrives on the drama and chaos that is “teenagehood.”
Or, I could be lying.
I’d probably go with the second one there. But how would you know? Me being a liar and all.
No, my best defense thus far has been to just nod and smile. I generally find that those two nonverbal gestures keep me out of a world of trouble.
Except when it comes to cell phones.
When I was 11 years old, I owned a five-speed, purple banana seat bike with chrome fenders, a sissy bar, reflectors and a bright orange flag on the back. It was the first bike I ever learned to do a wheelie on, and doubled as a motorcycle when me and Rory and Brett attached playing cards to the spokes with wooden clothespins.  
My Stingray bike really has nothing to do with cell phones, eye-rolls or back hair, but I figured this might be my only opportunity to ever work it into a Spiew. And hey, I’m all about Carpe Diem.
Which reminds me of the time my parents wouldn’t buy me a race car bed. Perhaps I’ve mentioned that childhood trauma before. If not, stop by and I’ll be happy to share my disappointed reality of not getting absolutely everything I want, when I want it.
It’s a pretty sad story. Bring a tissue.
And I’ll try not to roll my eyes when you say something really stupid.