I have become my parents

That's a scary-looking sentence up there.

As much as I've railed against it, it's happening. I can see it clearly in my recent "exchanges" with the teen-ager.

Son - "Why am I always the one who has to put away the dishes? It's always me! You just don't want to do them."
Me - "Because your dad & I are not the only ones in this house who eat off of them and get them dirty. I'm sure your friends have chores, too."
S - "No! I'm the only one who has to do freakin' (my patience hits the wall here) chores! I can't wait to move out!" (slams cabinet doors for added dramatic effect)
M - (voice rising higher) "Oh yeah, we'll I'd like to see how far you'd get if someone wasn't around to do your dishes."
S - "Whatever... this sucks!"
M - "It sucks? Well here, let me get your sleeping bag and thing of go-gurt and off ya' go."
S - mumbles something incoherent.
M - (sounding shrewish) "What?? What did you say? I'm sorry that it takes 5 minutes out of your precious day of video gaming to do dishes. I wouldn't want you to break a sweat or anything." Mind you, he only gets 30 min. a day of gaming. (that's MY dramatic comeback)

And on it goes, for another 10 minutes. I'm exhausted at the end, and tossing and turning about it before I go to sleep at night.

Why. Why am I trying to argue with a 13 year old? Like my mom always said, it's like arguing with a brick wall. I understand that now, but don't understand why I'm perpetuating the process. I can't seem to find a better way to deal with it. And books on the subject, once they're past the Dr. Sears years, are sorely lacking. They all seem to point to the fact that I should've started better communication about, oh, the time of birth. Well, it's a little late for that now. So what am I going to do?

I feel like it's only going to get worse, and I'm scared.