I'm ready to beat him with a box of Kleenex!

So there's this kid that takes classes at the bookstore. Nice kid. Sweet. Funny. I was really psyched when he and Nick got to know each other and began hanging out. Now? Not so much.

Okay, a key element to this story before I go any further is this...my biggest pet peeve is men who cry. Oh, don't get me wrong, if someone dies or something really horrible happens then go ahead and cry. But if you are just crying because it's a Tuesday, then I'm going to want to hurt you. So things were going along well and then one day this kid came out of his class and just stood by the front desk weeping. It's not something you see everyday so I was intrigued. If I'd known that this was going to become a weekly pattern, I would have NEVER opened this door. Crying spell number one was because his parents and his girlfriend's parents felt that he was not motivated and needed to grow up a bit. Being that he was standing there soaking my shoulder with his tears, I was most definitely agreeing with them. After a few minutes he calmed down and went back to class. I was pretty uncomfortable with even LOOKING at him then but he left and I was okay.

The next week he came in looking all sad. He went in to class and then came out mid-way through and started to cry again. I don't even know why - he just stood there and silently sobbed. I tried to look busy while conversing with him but seriously, I felt like he was being a bit of a drama queen. The NEXT time he came in with that look I was like "Are you freakin kidding me???" I really was busy that time (thank GOD!) but what I really wanted to do was yell at him to knock it off. Then his girlfriend broke up with him. Why? Because he's a CRY BABY!! Well, duh! No big surprise to me.

When he came in on Monday I was in no mood at all for him. He walked in, I had people at the desk and he walked right behind the desk and stood behind me and I looked at him and said "No, absolutely not. I don't have time for this today. Go to class." He came out several times in hopes of talking to me but luckily my friends had my back. Honestly, even without knowing his pattern of behavior they could SEE that this was a problem. At the end of class he came and stood at the desk and put his head down on it hoping for attention. He got none. He left, came BACK, put his head down on the counter again and after a few minutes left. I mean, is his life so heinous? NO! Is he just an 18 year old who has no motivation what so ever to grow up? YES!

The boy came in yesterday for a class and as you know, having just lost my grandmother that morning, I wanted NOTHING to do with him. I refused to even make eye contact. I felt a wee-bit bad about it but I just can NOT handle all of this crying and drama over nothing. So I asked Nick what this kid's deal was and even HE is getting tired of all of the crying. The kid shows up at my house now, unannounced might I add, and just comes here to sob and cry!!

I honestly do not know what to do. I don't like being this mean, I'm normally a nurturer but this kid is sucking my will to live! I dread seeing him. I'm starting to keep the blinds closed so that if he does show up, I can pretend that we're not home! When I asked Nick to - as a friend - tell this kid that he needs to, you know, Man up, do you know what he told him? "Dude, my mom doesn't like people crying around her."

???

That so does NOT mean MAN UP!!!

Tomorrow's another day. Hopefully this kid knows that Nick will be out. Maybe he'll be out with Nick, at this point, I don't know. All I do know is that I don't want to be around it. I mean, I'm pretty weepy right now too, but I just lost my grandmother. I'm not crying because I can't do my math homework! There has GOT to be a solution to this or you'll be seeing me on the eleven o'clock news:

"Local woman beats teenager up with box of tissues. News at eleven."