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By Mary Oves

I’m headed to Scottsdale to visit a friend for a week. The boys are in charge of the house while I am away.

Listen, I don’t know what kind of boys you have or how many, but if those words don’t strike terror in your heart, if uttering them doesn’t make the blood freeze in your veins, you don’t have the same kind of boys I do, or as many. College-age boys are like goats with debit cards.

Boys are egocentric, remembering very little that doesn’t directly involve them. They could drive you to the airport, escort you to the gate and still have the audacity to look confused as they hand you your luggage.

Two years ago, I landed in Reykjavík and got a text from my son.

“Mom, can you make me dinner?”

“I’m in Iceland.”

Silence. “Wait, where are you?”

“I reminded you every day for a week.”

Pause.

“Wait, so you can’t make me dinner?”

They have been suspiciously attentive this week, asking me more than once when I will be leaving. My middle son is conveniently coming home with his fraternity the same day I am flying out.

(I have already warned the neighbors and apologized in advance).

Preparing the house for my departure is more involved of a feat than the actual departure itself. Since I can’t ensconce my house and dog in bubble wrap, other precautions must be taken:

• Throw out or freeze any food with rotting potential that requires even the smallest amount of preparation. This includes yogurts, cheeses, perishables and meats.

• Label the dog treats, the dog food, and the dog with the following caption: “This is your dog. He is a living creature that needs food and water and walks. Please make sure he is alive upon my return.”

• Post-its: “Don’t cook!” “Turn off the fan!” “Don’t touch the thermostat!” “Empty the dryer vent!” “Don’t touch this, it’s mine!” “Blow out candles!” “Walk the dog!” “Flush!” “Don’t go near my bedroom!” “Put towels in hamper!” “Trash day is Friday!” If you wonder whether all of the exclamation points are necessary, you must not have boys.

• Hide my Grey Goose, or they will serve it to their friends like they are high-end bartenders in Manhattan. Then they fill the empty bottle with water and stick it back in the cabinet. They get me every time with this, usually when I have a friend over and I am making her a vodka tonic, and see that strange enigmatic look come over her face. Nothing like a nice strong water and tonic with extra lime.

• Buy them consumables and dry goods like ramen noodles, microwavable mac and cheese, ice-cream cups, hay, hamster pellets and suet cakes.

• Stack 10 rolls of toilet paper on the floor of each of the bathrooms. It is of utmost importance that they have toilet paper within reach at all times. If you don’t understand this, you don’t have boys.

• Turn all shampoo bottles and toothpaste tubes to the insignia side, or it will cease to exist. I once got a text “Mom, there’s no toothpaste, you took the toothpaste with you!” Then I had to stop the fun thing I was doing to inform my son that the Crest is most certainly there but is most likely turned to the white ingredient side rather than the blue and green side. “Oh,” he responded indignantly, “well, it was turned around, so I didn’t notice it.”

• Do all the laundry and all the dishes. Leave nothing dirty behind, or it will be dirty when you get back.

• Lock my bedroom door, hide the key and affix the following sign to the door: “Abandon all hope, ye who attempt to enter here.”

• Buy a pack of 200 Solo cups. Smash all nice glasses on the pavement ahead of time, because they will be broken when I get back anyway.

• Put away cute decorations or cozy arrangements. Debate putting newspaper down in all rooms.

• Take a Polaroid of every clean room, affix pictures to refrigerator with the following message on a Post-it: “What the house should look like when I get home.”

I was in Canada when the twins turned 21, and I had issued a stern warning to all three boys for my week away: take care of my dog and don’t go near the brand-new white hand-hooked wool carpet in the guest room.

When they returned home after their bar-hopping escapades, it so happened that my middle son and his drunken fellow troglodytes decided it would be altruistic to throw my oldest son into the bathtub face-down so as to avoid the unlikely occurrence of his vomiting on my brand-new white hand-hooked wool carpet in the guest room.

But alas, he crawled out of the bathtub, into the guest room, and proceeded to desecrate my brand-new white hand-hooked wool carpet.

They took advantage of my jet lag and managed to hide the vomit stains from me for a couple of days by throwing towels and clothes over them, but the guilt got to be too much for them. I expressed my disappointment, and my oldest son, while penitent, had the temerity to act hurt that I wasn’t expressing more relief over his well-being.

I asked my middle son why he threw his twin brother into the bathtub face-down.

“He has scratches and bruises all over his face,” I said. “What were you thinking?”

He looked at me.

“You told us never to put a drunk to bed on his back, so he doesn’t choke on his own vomit.”

He said this stoically, and added, “We saved his life, Mom.”

Yes, they paid to replace the carpet. I’m hoping this trip goes better. They’re older and more mature now and more able to control themselves.

Anyway, the dog is in charge.

— Mary Oves

Mary Oves lives at the Jersey shore with her three sons: twins John and Dustin, 22, and Tommy, 18. Oves is a widow of four years and a professor of English at the local college. She devotes all of her spare time to travel and working on her blog, the-not-it-girl.com.