...and it's working.
Mark swears he's old enough for a cell phone, while I quietly contend he is not. This belief is based on the number of times and places I have searched for Mark's lost phone, including (but not limited to) go-kart tracks, baseball fields, summer camps, his friends' houses, and even my own car. I have fished it from his pants mere seconds before dropping them into the wash, after he's sworn he checked the pockets multiple times. Three weeks ago, he tired of losing it, and completely killed the phone when he took it for a swim in the ocean. Apparently, saltwater is bad for cell phones.
But this weekend, he almost pushed me over the edge with that dang phone. After spending the day at a theme park with the Boy Scouts, he returned to the church, where a parent's meeting was in progress.
"Hi mom, bye mom," he called, as he passed by. He joined the other scouts outside, where they were busy not interrupting the parent meeting.
But an hour later, Mark came back in like a hurricane, talking fast, and grabbing my stuff on the table. I isolated the words, "your," "phone," "call," and "me," but everything else was just babbling.
"What do you need?" I asked, plucking my cell phone from his hands.
"You need to call my phone!" he said, urgently. "It fell out of my pocket while I was wrestling!"
And though I didn't quite get the urgency, I called the phone and followed Mark outside.
Where it was now pitch black.
I headed toward the school lunch area, but Mark headed out to a giant athletic field instead. Did I mention it was pitch black? And giant?
I stared at the giant, black field and sighed. I'd never actually looked for a needle in a haystack until that very moment.
While Mark and a few other boys scoured the field in the dark, I called his cell repeatedly.
"That's weird," I called out. "I can't even hear the phone ringing."
And somewhere, out in the dark field, Mark shouted back to me, "That's because it's on vibrate!"
I don't know how Mark lived past that particular moment in time, but I think it has to do with him being out in the dark field. If he'd been anywhere close to me, I might have strangled him immediately.
"It's on VIBRATE?!?!?" I yelled. "Are. You. Kidding. ME??"
I think smoke actually billowed out of my ears, and I may have blacked out in rage for a minute.
"It should still light up when you call," said another logical young scout. I think his calm manner shocked me out of my momentary rage. I took a deep, calming breath, stopped dialing Mark's phone, and used my phone as a flashlight instead.
We covered that field two, three times, with no luck. Finally, after 40 minutes, I thanked the other scouts and parent and called off the search.
But Mark didn't get off so easy. We returned to the field at 7 the next morning, where he resumed his search, again with no luck.
He left his contact info with the church. I made him empty his backpack again, and call the Scout leader he drove to the park with, on the off chance he left the phone in the car.
"It's not there," Mark insisted. "It fell out of my pock--" He stopped short when he saw me glaring at him.
"You'll buy a new phone tonight with your allowance," I said quietly. Mark immediately began to protest, but I snapped my finger and hissed "SHHHHH!" a la the Dog Whisperer, and like a good pup, Mark went silent.
"You have to pay for it because YOU LOST IT," I said. "No more discussion!" He opened his mouth, and I SHHHHHshed him again.
Mark moped all through dinner. He'd been saving his money for a new bike, and this would put a serious hurt on his savings.
"Well, think how much it'll cost you if you keep losing your phone every month," I told him. "Twenty bucks a month to replace it, over 12 months a year--that's $240 a year."
He gasped. "That's more than bike I want!" he cried. "The bike is only $200!"
I smiled, and channelled Jon Lovitz from A League of Their Own.
"Well then, this would be more, wouldn't it?" I said.
Mark continued grumbling. I didn't quite understand all the mumbling, but I gathered that he could see the bike slipping from his future, and he was not happy about it.
We were literally heading out the door to buy a new phone when the home phone started ringing. I looked at the familiar caller ID number, then shouted, "It's your phone!"
Turns out, Mark HAD left the phone in the car. It was safe and sound at the Scout leader's house, and we could pick it up whenever.
Mark whooped it up all the way home. He sensed how close to death he'd really come, and he was grateful he'd gotten the phone back. I smiled at him, finally ready to forgive the little bugger, when he pushed me right back to my unhappy place.
"This phone's okay," he said nonchalantly. "But can I still buy another new phone? A cooler phone?"
I couldn't answer him. Instead, I simply pointed to his bedroom, and from my crazy eyes and the smoke once again pouring from my ears, he knew exactly what it meant. It meant, for the second time in as many days, he was about to have another near-death experience.
"Fine, good night," he conceded. And smartly headed off to bed without another word.
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