Friday, September 6, 2013

Message in a bottle. Without the bottle


The benefit of giving your kid a phone when she goes into high school--especially if she's a texting genius*--is that you get little messages throughout the day with updates on How Things Are Going.

My favorite so far is from the first day of school, roughly two hours in: Ughhhhhhhhhhhhh. I already have stories to tell you.

Mostly she writes about how there are no cute boys. Sometimes she tells me what class she's going to, or what she thinks of her teachers, or how she did on a placement test.

Abby is a great writer with an eye for detail, and because they let you text in the hallways between classes, apparently, I get a new message every 90 minutes or so. And I won't lie--that is super fun. Just to know what my kid is up to, what she's thinking and feeling and seeing? Is a gift. Add in some teenage angst and a flair with words, and you've practically got a sitcom on your phone.

So anyway, the moral of this story is when you finally get your kid that phone she wanted, make sure the plan comes with unlimited text.

*It takes me, no joke, three and a half minutes to send a simple, one sentence message. Abby can crank out eight paragraphs in twelve seconds flat with proper punctuation and everything. These are not exaggerations. Um, mostly.

P.S. I know, slow writing week. Have been working extra hours, and you'd think I'd at least have some good Cranky Steve stories, right? Except he's been out of the office a lot, so... not much fodder there. Maybe next week.

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