Don't Call Me

I no longer have a phone. I'll give you the short version. Seth had a juke that he would never use. Why you may ask? Because he was afraid he was going to lose it. Meanwhile, the girls had his old juke which Sean dropped in the toilet. We dried it out as best we could (yes, the drop included some urinated water, but that is neither here nor there) and it worked to some degree except that for a while the 0 refused to work on it. Then there was some problems with being heard, which proved very inconvenient when one has decided call one's father-in-law in a sudden impulse of rage twenty-three years in the making. In the end, I decided to get rid of the girls' phone and award them the juke that Seth refused to carry and downgrade him to his original LG phone. It doesn't hold a charge for very long, but as little as he uses it, I figured it didn't really matter. Five times I told that boy to put the phone in his car along with the charger so he could be at my beck and call and five times, he neglected to do so. Last Monday, he came home from school because he forgot some books (a little foreshadowing here) and I told him to take his phone so I knew when he got back to school. Being a hand-wringer, I don't feel this is asking too awfully much to give poor old mother some piece of what little mind I have. As my phone was conveniently located, he picked it up and said he would just take it instead. He was wearing a black leather coat that we inherited from an ex faction of the family. (I will add at this point that I myself called him when he was within a half-mile school anticipating that he would forget or neglect to call to me.) When he returned from school later that day, I asked about the phone to which he replied, "It's in my locker at school." Tuesday, I got the same reply with an added, "Sorry." Wednesday, there was a snowstorm and we elected to stay home though it was not officially called by the school. Last night, (Thursday) I called to him and said, "Bring me my phone, please. I'm going to need it tonight." (In all truthfullness, I KNEW he wouldn't have it again.) And that's when the truth came out. He'd discovered in the course of the day that his coat was NOT in fact in his locker, but that he had left it in the commons where it was last seen by a janitor on Monday night. My phone was still in the pocket. I yelled at Seth about responsibility and the hard work of others from the time we left the house until the time we hit the city of Boulder. And I do mean yelled. Lindsay accused me of giving her a headache. Then I came to the realization that I still have Seth and that he is more valuable to me than a cell phone or any other material possession I own. So I will pray for the person who took the coat and figure that perhaps they need it more than we do. A phone is just a phone and can be replaced. Kay Sera Sera.