So the other evening my wife sort of casually mentions to me that her father had given her a phone call earlier that day. Now, that's not a huge surprise, since her dad calls her on average like 4 times a day (I wish I was joking about that). So she begins to tell me that her dad had asked her...."what's going on with the cell phone bill?" Now, her father pays her cell phone bill, and the kids cell phone bill. (I pay my own, thank you very much all of you smart asses who were getting ready to ask that question)
Kim asked him what he was talking about and he mentioned that the bill was quite a bit higher than it had been the previous months. He gave her the bill to look at and Kim had a friend of hers at her job explain what all the minutia of the bill was a reference too.
It seems our daughter discovered the wonderful world of text messaging. Like everything else that she does, I'm sure that one of her little yenta friends showed her how to do it---even though she had been previously banned from using the cellphone.
Oh, didn't I mention that? Well, apparently her mom had allowed her to use it on Tuesdays on the day that she was at school late. Naturally she didn't tell ME about this, but hey....I digress.
So Lil Miss Kellie....darling daughter....then proceeds to start text messaging her friends--DURING CLASS. And I don't mean "occasionally". Between the middle of February and the middle of March? 1300 hundred text messages....all on Tuesday and all between school hours. She had turned to text messaging the way that Whitney turned to crack. Full fledged addiction baby. So we get home and have the old "family meeting". We did it under the guise of discussing their upcoming trip to Dallas with the school band.
Come into my parlor said the spider to the fly.
We told them how they needed to behave on the trip and not do anything stupid, etc and then mentioned how they should give us a call at least once a day...yadda yadda.
And then....before she knew it.....the fly was trapped in the spider's web.
"Oh yeah....the phone," I said. "Hey Andy....see this phone?"
"Yeah."
"Well as of right now....its yours. You can leave the table now."
Kellie sort of sat there....not fully understanding the situation....well, not at first.
"So you have any idea why I might have just given Andy the phone?"
"Um...I've been using it too much?"
"Mom....you have something you want to show Kellie?"
Kim laid out the cell phone bill. 32 pages worth. 1300 text messages. Almost $200.
Kim then began listing the TIME of the calls and the text messages--how they were occuring DURING school. I sat there doing a slow burn as Kim continued to go over all the charges---text messages, downloading ringtones....it just kept getting better.
"Can I ask you one question?"
"Yes."
"Were you OUT OF YOUR MIND???"
It was a rhetorical question, but I really wondered. I raised my voice some, smacked the table with my hand for added dramatics......and told her that I wasn't so sure that she was going to Dallas. That drew a visible wince from her. Kellie above all else understands social status and perception of social status. If she wasn't in Dallas with the rest of the band, it would look very bad and she would have....in the words of Ricky Ricardo....'some splaining to do'.
I left it on that note and let her stew on it. The next day I went to work and told a few friends with daughters the story. Amazing. The minute I said the word "text messaging" they all---everyone of them---rolled their eyes and went..."oh yeah, I went thru that."
At least I didn't feel like my daughter was the ONLY ONE doing something stupid.
I spoke to Kim about what I felt an appropriate--and we argued about it. Which is something that we almost never do, so it made it all the more difficult. Kim's reasoning was that it wasn't the end-all-get-all of bad things she could do....where as I felt it was probably even a dumber thing to do than the old Myspace.com situation earlier in the year.
Andy had a special class he was taking that night at school to help him prepare for the SAT's, so Kim and I had dinner alone with Kellie. I asked her if she mentioned what had happened to her friends and she said that she had. I told her that we weren't going to take the Dallas trip away, because it had pretty much been a Christmas gift to her and her brother and it probably wouldn't be fair to take it back---no matter how dumb her actions with the cellphone had been. I told her that Kim and I were still in "negotiations" as to what her punishment would be....but that she shouldn't count on seeing a cellphone until the beginning of her sophmore year of high school (in other words, about a year and a half). The rest of the punishment, including how she was going to repay her grandfather....would be forthcoming.
UGH. Teenagers. And its just begun with her.
So, just as a little sidelight to the story....the kids made it to Dallas for their trip and the first night they were there they called us (Andy handled the phone). We had given them each about $80 for spending money for the weekend (Thursday thru Sunday) with the knowledge that they would have their breakfast and dinner paid for by the school---so all they were responsible for would be their lunch and what they spent money on.
So here we were....the FIRST day.....and Kim asked Kellie how her day went.
"Good, we went to the mall." Kellie informs her.
"How's your money doing? Did you spend any yet?"
"Yeah, I bought a pair of shoes for $50."
$50. And she hadn't been there a day.
My little girl is becoming quite the young woman. I think I just felt another gray hair come in.
Later,
Jeff
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