*** Weekend Write-In for 7th Sep 2018 ***

"new": In 500 words, tell what happens when it is new (belatedly written Sept 26)

FIRST TIME EVER

'I hate you!'

'You'll get over it.'

'No I won't. You've ruined my life! I'll never forgive you for this ... ever!'

'You'll have forgotten In a month tops.'

'You don't understand me!'

'I understand you all too well. All you're doing is repeating a huge ongoing pattern that has been experienced by billions of fathers and sons before you.'

'I ... what the hell are you talking about?'

'When I was your age your granddad said I couldn't go to the Sugar Cubes concert because I had school the next day. Sound familiar?'

'Uh ... errr ... No! What's the Sugar Cubes? Some lame old man band?'

'Looking back, they were a bit crap, but at 15 I had lousy taste in music. I daresay in a decade you'll think your band ... what were they called?'

'The Finger Bangers.'

*sigh* 'Of course they are... you'll look back and wonder why you wasted your time listening to crap like that.'

'No I won't! Stop assuming you know me!'

'Son, I do know you. Better than anyone else except your mother. We have, after all been living together for 15 years, during which time I brought you up. What this is here, is hormones ... you're having a teenage strop. I was the same at your age - it's programmed behaviour!'

'No it's not ... you don't know what I go through at school, what I feel and ...'

'Poetry or lyrics?'

'What!!?? Have you been going through my stuff!!??'

'No, I'm simply assuming based on the many millions of angsty teenage boys, of which I was one, that you are having thoughts, emotions and reactions similar to, well pretty much everybody, anywhere. I used to write death metal lyrics.'

'Bullshit! What do you know about metal?'

'That it was pretty much similar in my day and you're probably even listening to some of the same bands. Cradle of Filth ... I used to love them in the 90's!'

'No, you ... you ... can't. I listen to Cradle of Filth!'

'Chip off the old block eh, son?'

'No! I won't listen to this anymore, I'm going to grandads.'

***

'I don't believe this!'

'All I'm saying is that I've been there and done it all, so you can benefit from my experience.'

'You're embarrassing me.'

'That's what I said to your great granddad when he caught me smoking weed. Course back then it was the sixties and the previous generation was much more strait laced. They didn't have free love. Why the things me and your grandma got up to ...'

*groans* 'Granddad, no! I don't want to hear about it. Just promise you won't tell dad.'

'Sorry son, I have to. But y'know, if he gives you too much shit, just remind him of the time I caught him and his mates stoned off their heads listening to that Sugar Cubes psychedelic crap.'

'You're kidding me!'

'Rubbish lightweight stuff. I was into heavy rock in my day - Slade, T-Rex, the Quo, Alice Cooper, Black Sabbath, Zeppelin of course ... tried telling all this to your dad when he was your age, but would he listen? But he grew out of it.'

'What do you mean?'

'Well just like me and your great granddad went to see the Grateful Dead together, I carried on the tradition. We had a great time seeing Cradle of Filth live if I remember rightly.'

'!!!!!'

'Just remember son, nothing is new. Everything repeats. Now don't let me catch you smoking weed in my house again, or ...'

'Or?'

'Or I'll have to smoke it with you and you don't want that do you son?'

'...No granddad.'