Friday, October 3, 2003
Tonight is Friday night, which means the Sells family generally has pizza and a
movie at home. However, since we’ve been through most of Blockbuster’s catalog
and the boys aren’t quite old enough for most of my DVD collection (9 is a tad
young for things like Fight Club…), we thought we’d take in
the new Jack Black movie School of Rock.
Kids-in-Mind.com gives it a 3.3.3, heavy on the poop jokes (which my sons
like) and heavy on the irreverence (which I like), so it seemed like a winner.
However, as most movies start between 7-7:30pm and I just noticed it was 6:30p
but Melissa wasn’t home with the boys, I started the calling. First was her
cell, but I remember her telling me it was out of batteries. Then it was her
sister’s house, where she had been, but she had left for a friend’s. Then the
friend, but no answer. And then I remembered my son and his cell phone.
My
son is 9 years old. He’s been into computers and gadgets of all kinds since
before he was 3. A few months ago, he was digging around and found my old Nokia
cell phone. It had some cool games, so he charged it up and started carrying it
around with him. Then, he wanted minutes so he could make his own calls. So we
finally found our way to the local AT&T wireless place (which wasn’t really very
local at all) and he spent his allowance money on pre-paid minutes ($10 for 20
minutes). After less than a week, he was down to 8 minutes left. He’s most just
calling his friends from our car (where I have my cell in my pocket w/o
unlimited monthly minutes) or from our house (where we don’t have long distance,
but we do still have a land line), but it’s his phone and his money and it gives
him pleasure.
It did, however, freak my wife out. “A 9-year old doesn’t
need a cell phone!” she’d say. I’d explain that it was his own money. “A 9-year
old doesn’t need a cell phone! Drug dealers have cell phones!” She and I both
have our own cell phones and besides the occasional glass of wine, we don’t even
*use* drugs, let alone *sell* them. And while no amount of reasoning with her
stopped her from being upset, she didn’t say he couldn’t have a cell phone, so
now he does. That he keeps charged. And that he carries. And that he spends his
own money on minutes for. And that I just called because he was with his mother:
“Hello?” said my 9-year-old son on his very own cell phone, surprised but
pleased to get a call.
“Can I talk to your mother?”
“Sure.”
“Hello. Sorry. My cell phone ran out of batteries,” she said.
“Aren’t you
glad that John has a cell phone?” I asked, not bothering to keep the smug out of
my voice.
“Hmphf,” she said, not bothering to keep the annoyed out of
hers.
I think I may pay for his next batch of minutes just so I can keep
calling her on his phone. : )
