My first New Year pet peeve.

The winner is *THE PHONE*!

Yesterday, after returning home from my lunch break, there was a note on my computer from Cassie the informer that said something like "Mom, Kris was texting downstairs when you told him not to. I hope you make him pay! Love, Cassie. PS You're my best friend." Texting is not on my plan and I had umpteen discussions with the boy regarding the responsibility that comes with a cell phone. Before I jumped down his troat, I went onto the web to check out the summary.
Under Kris's usage were no less than 236 text messages. GAH!!! Under minutes used by Sir Kristopher, drum roll please........ 335!! He has used 335 anytime minutes in ONE WEEK!!! Yes, that is pathetic! What was even more pathetic was under my usage, I used 60 and only because Ron called this month. The 335 minutes is not going to cost me money. I have 750 in my plan but should the trend continue, 335 minutes for one normal week means I'll be paying overage charges up the ying yang. Once again, I told the boy to cool it. There is no reason why his friends should use his minutes when we have a perfectly good land line I pay a perfectly good flat rate for.

Today, at about 10:00, our phone rings. I had my business calls come to my home phone temporarily. AT&T supposedly installed a business line for me two years ago but I've never been able to get it work even after a friend and a phone tech came to hook it up. Anyhoo, the call was from a co-worker and I reached for the phone charger but THERE WAS NO PHONE ON IT! Cassie slapped the speaker button on the base station and hurried me over there to talk. I told my co-worker to hold on a sec, placed the phone on mute and told Cassie to FIND THE CORDLESS PHONE NOW! She scrambled off and came back 5 secs later with the cordless. When I attempted to answer the phone however, there was no talk button. Yes, the talk button was missing. I told her to go find the other one. By this time, I was fuming. I slapped the mute button and told my co-worker to hang on and said I was sorry. Then turned around and yelled at my kids that if they put the bleepin phone back on the bleepin charger like I asked they wouldn't bleepin be ground from the bleepin phone for the NEXT WEEK. Cassie tells me to calm down, she found the other cordless, I grabbed it and GUESS WHAT?? It had no juice because it wasn't on the BLEEPIN charger all night. I was pissed! I accidentally hung up on my co-worker which fortunately was not a management type and grounded both kids from the phone and confiscated Kris's cell. Then I spent the day watching the kids friends call while I purposefully didn't answer the phone. Every time the phone rang, Miss Cassie looked agitated. "Aren't you going to answer that?" "No, says I. Payback is a bitch isn't it?" "Well at least tell them I'm grounded." I will when I feel like it.

Such is life in the Raised Ranch in HP.

When do they go back to school again?