For Christiane Tauzher’s family, excursions are a highlight. Nature, picnics, playing badminton … a highlight for the whole family? The teenager sees it completely differently.
At the word “excursion” it puts the teenage girl’s hair up. It doesn’t mean anything good: you have to get up early, have to get dressed, have to be separated from the strong WiFi for at least three hours, have to be questioned by your parents, have to move your legs, have to put up with cold, wind and rough terrain and – the worst – have to eat a banana or an apple.
Oh, on weekends our daughter’s life consists of forced labor and the fulfillment of duties. She is a poor tormented person who has to survive in our clutches for ten months to come of age.
Our hearts, Olafs and mine, beat faster at the word “excursion”. The teenager’s little brother is also happy every time we pack the big hiking backpack with provisions, badminton rackets, football and reading books. Reaction of the teenager as soon as the excursion starts: “Really now … do I really have to go with you?” We then nod regretfully.
Lately, it was a beautiful late autumn day, we shot at after Laxenburg to drive. A wonderful site, once the summer private residence of the imperial Habsburg family, with huge white bark trees, historical temples and summer houses, a castle and a romantic pond. “Not Laxenburg again,” the teenager grumbled. I pulled out my cell phone and found a photo of evidence. “You were in Laxenburg for the last time in 2019.”
“Yes, exactly,” she replied.
I smiled and said very friendly: “Look, you don’t have to worry about anything. Please just get the dogs ready and don’t forget the leashes. In Laxenburg the dogs are not allowed to run free.”
“I know,” sighed the teenager, “this is not my first walk there.” Then she sat in the car with the dogs.
When we got on, she pointed out that she had waited 28 minutes and that we could really have hurried more quickly. After all, she has something else to do after the trip.
We arrived twenty minutes later. The dogs jumped on the sidewalk in anticipation. “Please put her on a leash,” I said. Nothing happened. “Hello ?!” I called again. “Where are the lines?”
To cut a long story short: the teenage girl, who had only one task of getting into the car with dogs and their leashes, had forgotten the leashes at home. But both dogs had coats on (at 14 degrees).
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“Are you serious now?”, I asked, “how are we supposed to take the dogs with us to the park?”
“I told you I was sorry. What should I do now?”
I suggested going to a pet shop and buying two lines. “The next pet shop is 2.3km away. I certainly won’t go there,” she buried my idea after doing a quick search on the Internet. An acquaintance of hers lives in Laxenburg and she would ask if he had a leash. A little later it was clear that the friend had a leash, but did not want to lend it.
I pulled the cord that closes the backpack out of the eyelets and tied the big dog to it. “Find a leash and then come along,” said Olaf to his daughter. We set off and left the teenage girl with the dog in her pocket, bent low over the smartphone, in front of the palace gardens.
About thirty minutes later, we had just started playing badminton, she came across the meadow towards us. It looked a bit crooked. That was because she had converted the rope, on which her smartphone usually hangs, into a dog leash. It was just stupid that her dog is no bigger than a rabbit. If the mistress had straightened up, she would have strangled the dog.
She sat down with us in silence and, with contempt of death, took the apple I handed her.
“This leash requirement is so stupid,” she said after a while. We didn’t say anything.
Another thirty minutes passed and the teen wanted to get back to the car. She was hungry, she let us know.
“You can have another banana,” I said. She left us silent and crooked. The puppy held its snout up in the air as high as it could so as not to take off.
We saw a thought balloon floating above our daughter’s head:
It was clear and clear: “Only TEN more months !!!!!”