Mother Unconvinced Son Is 'Just Holding It For Someone' In All 215 Facebook Photos

Story by Egon Sinclair 

| Published Nov 17, 2009

Despite a string of increasingly desperate, entirely half-assed excuses, Derek Hovenac found it impossible to exonerate himself during a Tuesday afternoon phone conversation with his mother. The scathing call occurred approximately 40 minutes after Angie Hovenac stumbled upon a Facebook album entitled “For Tobacco Use Only,” which contained hundreds of photos of her oldest son clutching or smoking marijuana paraphernalia.

“I was just minding my own business, rifling through Derek’s photos and friending every single female pictured so I could make sure they were nice girls,” reported his mother, “when I stumbled across a photo of my son torching a bong like Joan of Arc.”

The 45-year-old mother of two claimed she was so distraught by the picture that she was barely able to click through the remaining 300 images. An additional 214 photos featured Derek and at least one of two water pipes, tagged with the names “Sir Fucks You Up” and “The Shawstank Redemption.”

“Now, I would never snoop into either of my children’s private affairs,” claimed the woman known to use a basket of fresh laundry as an excuse to barge into her younger son Riley’s room whenever he has a girl over. “And if I ever, ever did spy on them, it most certainly wouldn’t be with the aid of a digital tool so invasive it’s spawned its own type of stalking!”

After two unsuccessful attempts to contact him and chew him out, Angie Hovenac finally got through to her son at approximately 3:30 p.m. Sources close to the college freshman blamed his slow response time on a 3:15 “wake 'n' bake,” as well as mass confusion over which pair of crumpled jeans cast about the dorm room actually housed his cell phone.

“Yeah, my mom was pretty pissed about the whole thing,” muttered a bleary-eyed Derek. “I tried to remind her she promised she wouldn’t abuse Facebook if I added her as a friend, but I realize now that was like … like telling a bear you’ll chill out with it if it promises not to eat you.”

Even with his mental faculties clouded, Derek made an honest effort to appease his raging mother. He claims he tried — as of press time — “pretty much everything.”

“I went with the usual stuff first: I was just holding it for someone for the better part of last weekend; I was actually blowing smoke back into the bong,” Derek recalled. “But she wasn’t buying it, so I had to up the ante.

“I was moonlighting as an undercover cop; maybe she was the one on drugs and was just rollin' balls; I’d been stricken with double amnesia. The list goes on.”

(Editor’s Note: “Double amnesia” is a rare medical condition where a person forgets they’ve forgotten everything and cannot be held liable for stuff they don’t remember they don’t know they did. To the three dozen or so people who’ll use this excuse in the coming weeks: You’re welcome.)

Thoroughly unconvinced by any explanation offered, Angie Hovenac shrilly announced Derek's father would “hear about this.” However, critics were quick to point out Nathan Hovenac’s preferred parental discipline techniques seldom go beyond a stern but noncommittal “Just don’t do it again, OK?,” a bored shrug or the occasional wicked high five.

But even he felt the need to weigh in on this issue.

“There are two dozen pictures floating around of my son sparking the middle of the bowl, instead of skirting around the sides so the next person in the rotation gets some green,” said a disgruntled Mr. Hovenac. “Honestly, I thought we raised him better than that.”