Phones… the good ole days when you were connected by a cord.. crank a dial to call a number.. then the keypad that lit up..then the cordless phone.. dear Lord we were living the dream.. then along came the bag phone. Throw the suit case in the pickup ma..we were connected.. the bag phone went away and then drum roll.. an apple caught our eye along with a Samsung and our lives were changed forever. In a short amount of time we have sucked ourselves into this tiny little box that holds our world. We are a prisoner to it.. did you get the text, the Instagram, the snap, the email or the Twitter?? My Dad would chuck it and beg for his bag phone to come back. My kids are prisoners just like everyone else.. we got the kids each a phone way before the “good” moms would ever allow their kids to have phones.. it was needed.. my kids were starting sports.. I had to know where they were, how they did, did they need money or food..the usual.. I hear from the “good” moms.. “well, when my baby grows up they won’t have a phone until they are 16 or maybe when they leave for college”.. blah blah..blow it out your home made lunches.. I don’t care what your perfect world does missy.. truth be known your kids will become addicted prisoners at 11 cause you will be shit full of them playing candy crush on your phone.. ha.. they will have to get the coolest phone, the one that talks to you, types for you and Lord knows what else. phones are built sexy.. anyone with an ounce of tech in their heart will ooh and aaaah over such contraptions..myself included.. sexy enough that they can do everything your home computer will do, just 4 times more expensive..which makes no sense..but us prisoners are happy to shell out cash for theses things.. the phones that we had first gotten the kids were getting old.. an iPhone 6.. egads..if you asked the kids Barney Rubble himself used the same model.. me being the hard ass was like ok..the next one is on you.. haha.. ok.. let’s all take a few mins to laugh that out.. the phones were old.. not holding their charge.. screens blacking out.. ya know the usual.. I drew the line when I called and it wouldn’t go through.. I told The Stauff..it is time for new phones..when Momma can’t find her hatchlings..shit hits the fan.. now The Stauff is one frugal individual.. months I say, were taken deciding shall we change carries? Who has the best plan? Should we just stay and see if we can change our plan? It felt like we were shopping for life insurance..but I guess in a sense we were. The Stauff was still in the air about what to do, but knew the bill coming every month saying we had run out of data about 8 or so times was causing him some heart burn. And that is where the story begins. Regional track.. kids were packing their bags. As usual I heard the, “I hate my phone”, “grrr, this phone doesn’t work”, “when are we ever going to get new phones “, and the happiness carried on. I made a mental note.. I am just going to go to a att store and figure this out.. the kids boarded the bus and away they went.. The Stauff and I roll into town and sure enough..an att store is glistening in the distance. The Stauff says, “We should check that place out while we are here”.. “indeed, dear, indeed”. The first night we go out to eat and head back to our room. We were staying in the same motel the team was. A knock on our door. Magee comes flying through the door. Huffin and puffin, he says, “this STUPID phone.. it quit working.. look at it..just look at it..won’t swipe, won’t turn off.. I hate it..it is even hot..feel it”. The Stauff gets it and looks it over. “Holy Shit”, he exclaims, “it is hot and it even smells hot”..Magee is pacing the room. I shrugged, “well there is nothing we can do at this point of time, the store is closed. We will check it out tomorrow. Let it completely die and try to plug it in”. He gives me a look like I should be a phone whisperer.. “seriously dude..go to bed”.. he gives one last huff and heads out. The Stauff looks at me after the door closes, “we definitely need to get him a new phone.. he has to have one”. I look at him, “I know, I know we will go tomorrow between events and figure out what we are going to do”.
The next day comes and we are watching track in true Wyoming form..freezing our ass off. The wind blows like a puff from hell. The clouds tease all day..”will it rain? Will it sprinkle or will it pour..muhahahah” fricking Mother Nature..she is so beasty….pretty soon it starts to sprinkle. I tell The Stauff, “I have an umbrella in the Jeep”. He smiles and runs.. bringing back my little umbrella for us.. the kids spied us and come running over plus one friend. Now it is pouring. All five of us are centered underneath this ☔️ trying to keep warm and half ass dry. Magee’s broken phone comes up in conversation amongst the 5 of us. The friend says, “well and how it happened was the crazy part”. The Stauff and I look at her with raised eyebrows.. I say, ” what is this you say?”. She was like, “oh boy, you don’t know.. Magee didn’t tell you.. oh no.. nothing.. nothing”.. and she backs up behind Pinker.. we look at Magee and we both were like “care to explain?”.. Magee stammers..smiles weakly and says, “well..we were all sitting around at the motel last night and someone wanted to know where their phone was. Pinker says it was on the microwave. I said what they put it in the microwave? Then we all looked at each other and wondered what would happen if you did put your phone in the microwave. So.. I… um.. put my phone in the microwave”. My mouth dropped.. this is the same kid who had at one point wanted to be an engineer.. I was thinking a mad fricking scientist was more in order.. I asked, “at what point did you think this was a good 💡”.. he said, “well at first we were going to put it in for 10 seconds, but we dropped to 5 and I still thought that would be too long, so I settled on only 2 seconds. The Stauff just looked at him..I was concerned that something bad was about to take place in the middle of a rain storm in front of lots of people. The Stauff finally broke the silence and said, “you knew what had happened to it when you came to our room all pissed off? That is why it was hot? That is why it smelled hot? You knew that”. Magee just stood there under the umbrella, I am sure wishing the rain would quit.. immediately.. he finally mustered up a “yea”. I was speechless.. The Stauff was speechless.. and then the rain quit and he ran off to finish his day.. The Stauff continued to stare at me.. finally he says, “well..he needs a phone.” I was in a shock, I wasn’t sure what was going to happen but, getting him a new one wasn’t on the horizon. I said, “well we can go check it out.. we need to change plans anyway.. we run off to the att store.. well well.. we walked into a killer deal with options we couldn’t turn down. All new phones for everyone a new plan and about $100.00 dropped from our bill. I did all the talking.. I got the phones lined out, ins here, unlimited there, wrap it up.. The Stauff looked at me and said, “what just happened?” I said, “I fixed the issue”.. away we go back to track. The Stauff says ok.. BUT, I am going to give the phone to him with some rules. We track down the kids.. we ask Magee if he has an Apple ID. He says “yea”. We say, “you know the password?” He says, “yea”. Then The Stauff took over. He reached inside his jacket and pulls out a new IPhone. Magee’s eyes fell out of his head. The Stauff says..”ok..here is a new phone. We are going to agree that we will never put this in a microwave or other contraption where the phone could be damaged. You will take care of this a little more than the last one. BECAUSE if you don’t..you are out of the phone business”. Agreement was entered.. Pinker watching the whole thing go down feels injustice as her big brother ruined his and a new one appeared.. before she opened her mouth to step on her soap box, The Stauff hands her hers. You could see her relax and ease it up. All was well and new prisoners were created. And on the way home.. I tried calling my babies to see where they were.. guess who answered?? You got it.. NOONE… hahahahahaha.. life of teenagers.. more gray hair every day..