New 18-year old powers.

That's what my youngest, aka Running Son, has, because today, he turned eighteen.

Let's pause for just a moment to say: damn.

That's right, my son is eighteen. The matter of his powers came up because I called him from the Fanzz store (yes, all the double-z merchandise in the world, in the basement of the EnergySolutions Arena) to figure out which of the zillion pairs of official NBA b-ball shorts were the ones he wanted. "You're gonna have to ask the guy, Mom," he said (oh, how I hate to ask the guy!), "because I can't see the shorts from here. Not even with my new 18-year old powers."

Well, damn. I asked the guy, and he pointed me to the shorts that most closely resembled the away game shorts, which I purchased. By the way, NBA merchandise is the biggest crazy scam in the universe, but that's another story for another day. The over-priced shorts plus a Nintendo DS game (Mario 3 on 3, in case you want to know) were the birthday gifts.

I also had explicit cake-making instructions: "Store-bought cake mix, chocolate, NOT organic, NOT Wild Oats, just normal chocolate cake, with in-a-can frosting, white, NOT organic, nothing crazy, just normal, store-bought frosting. In a can." My own awesome cake-making powers were held in check, though I exercised them just a little by hand-beating the batter for 300 strokes. Everyone agreed it was delicious, though, which just goes to show you--sometimes the normal, non-organic, store-bought option isn't so bad. We had a forest of candles to emphasize the point of how freakishly old the baby of the family now is.

The Jazz redeemed the price of the shorts by beating the Clippers handily tonight, a good gift for the birthday boy. I'm not particularly interested in him growing all the way up, moving out, making a life for himself. But these, as I understand it, are part of the repertoire of the 18-year old powers. So I suppose I'd better get used to the idea.