Three Little Words

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I went to pay my cell phone bill the other day and nearly fell out of my chair when I saw the bill. One reason it was high had to do with me forgetting to pay it last month. The next reason after that: there was a $75 charge for internet use on my son's line. Throw in taxes and you've got yourself a nice chunky bill that will help everyone over at Sprint be able to stock up that much more this winter.

I have explicit rules about unsupervised internet use and my son is fully aware of them. The only reason he had Internet access on his phone in the first place was for picture mail. And unless he downloaded $75 worth of photos onto his phone I seriously doubt he was simply using it for that. I choose not to think of the possibilities, although I don't believe they have access where he's vacationing in VA.

I promptly ended his Internet access and called to let him know. Since we haven't spoken in a few days I didn't want to begin with a reprimand. I began by telling him how much I missed him and how I was looking forward to him coming home this weekend. Then I lit into him --- telling him his Internet privileges were kaput, done, outta here. None of this had the effect it probably could've had, you see, I left him a message because he didn't answer when I called.

About twenty minutes later I received a text message from him:

"I'm sorry, Dad." (Dad was capitalized in the text).

I looked at it a couple times. Closed it and opened it again. It continued to read the same way. When in trouble, my son is not the apologizing type. He's the Oh-God-I'm-in-trouble-again-so-I'm-just-going-to-sit-here-with-a-dumb-expression-on-my-face-and-say-nothing-so-my-folks-will-want-to-choke-the-life-out-of-me type (think Homer & Bart Simpson).

But he said/texted "I'm sorry, Dad." I was amazed at how much that took the edge off of my displeasure. It made me wonder what has happened during his stay in Virginia to bring about such a mature gesture on his part.

Or maybe he's just growing up. I responded, "Okay," and paid the bill. I vaguely remember when a phone was simply what is pictured above. Sometimes, I prefer those days.

Image Source: Flickr


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