If family-friendly comedies and cell phone commercials are any indication, teenagers suffer from near-fatal humiliation at the hands of their dim-witted parents on a daily basis. I’ve been lucky enough to be spared by this dreaded disease, as my parents are the two most awesome people I know.

This is not a recent epiphany. My parents. Are. Awesome. And always have been.

Some of my favorite childhood memories revolve around coming home on Saturday nights after my dad’s bowling league, having spent the past 3 hours sitting on the floor and eating grilled cheese, and my parents letting me stay up and watch stand-up comedy. That’s right. 8 years old and watching Evening at the Improv and Caroline’s Comedy Hour at 1:00 am on a Saturday night, and I think it made me a much better person. Or at least one with a more discerning taste in stand-up.

My parents didn’t just bring me to bowling alleys and bars (where I learned how to play pool from my godfather). They also brought me to volunteer on political campaigns. I still have t-shirts from the HOPE team (Hayden, Olmstead, and Patrick for board of Education). I went door to door passing out literature for Michael Dukakis, with my elderly French-Canadian neighbor/best friend standing behind me, as protection but in complete befuddlement. I remember at one point asking my mom the difference between Democrats and Republicans (I was maybe 6 at the time), and she paused for a moment and said, “Democrats care about people, and Republicans care about buildings.” First- please do not take that definition as a catalyst for a political argument in a series of TLDR comments. Second, my mom is awesome.

Both of my parents had been through some real crazy shit before I came along. I’m talking Lifetime movie shit, and one of the big budget ones with Tara Reid or Jennifer Love Hewitt. And yet, they have managed to be the most awesome parents ever.

They are still my favorite people to hang out with. I talk to my mom every day, and no decision is made without her advice (whether I take it or not). I visit them often and have more fun hanging out with them than pretty much any of my friends (sorry!). We share the same sense of humor and a lot of the same interests.

I never went through a stage of rebellion, really. Even in the brief pre-teen phase where parents shouldn’t exist, they stayed in the background, dropping me off at the mall and allowing private upstairs slumber parties.

I feel almost guilty at how awesome my parents are- kind of like that twinge of guilt a trust fund baby gets when he spends money he didn’t earn. But just like the trust fund kid, I get over it quick and revel in the fact that, let’s face it: I lucked out.