The Son of Texting

Last weekend, the Son of Never Stops Eating reached yet another new developmental milestone.

If you're thinking that he went out on a date, you'd be wrong;  he bought himself a smartphone. He'd been insisting that he needed a smartphone so that he could text pictures of his Lego creations to his besties, and he finally decided that the need was urgent and compelling enough to part with some of his saved-up Lego cash to buy one. So after our usual Saturday breakfast, off to the store of the mobile devices we went.  I set some ground rules: if he lost it or damaged it, he was paying for the replacement.  No watching Simpsons You tube videos or playing with the phone during school. He was responsible for making sure it was charged at night.

Mom, he sighed, I know what to do.

As soon as we got home, we started entering phone numbers into the contacts list: me, the Dad of No, the Grandpa of No, The College Student.  I showed him how to text, and told him to practice by texting me.

Son: Hi Mom it's me!
Me: Hello!
Son: I love this phone Mom you rock.
Me: You are my favorite son!
Son: Did you put $20 on my card?

It appeared that he'd mastered texting along with the essential teenager survival skill of hitting your parents up for cash.

The next day, I got another text:

Mom I may have some thing in my ear can you clean it out for me when I get home please

Um, sure, ewwwww, but ok...….

Then I got a phone call from him at school.  Someone from the phone store had called him, he said, and wanted his zip code.  I was absolutely befuddled.  Why would someone from the phone store be calling him for our zip code?  And why was he answering his phone during school, when he was supposed to be focused on learning?  I'd told him that while he was in school he needed to put the phone away and not use it for anything.

One of his teachers got on the phone and explained to me that the phone had started ringing, so The Son of Never Stops Eating had answered it and then had gotten up and walked into the hallway. She'd followed him out and had stopped him from giving out any information.  Then he'd called me. He was worried.

That's weird, I said. I wonder who it was.  Probably someone telling him he had a credit card balance due on a fake credit card account, or asking if he wanted to buy a timeshare at Disneyworld, or the IRS telling him he owed them money and he needed to send it in right away on a gift card.  I was  certain it wasn't the phone store.  I couldn't think of any reason they'd be calling him.   We hadn't really talked about scams and solicitation phone calls yet.

OK, I told him.  Don't answer the phone if you don't know who it is.

Son: What did they want?
Me:  I don't know. Information.
Son: I don't have any information! I just have a hamster!
Me:  Well, don't give anyone anything over the phone, like your debit card number.
Son: (indignantly)I would NEVER give anyone my debit card number! That's stealing! They better not take my money!

After I told him not to answer the phone unless it was a number he knew, I realized that when he started applying for jobs, he might be getting legitimate calls from numbers he didn't know.  So the next challenge awaits: knowing when to answer the phone if you don't know the number, and setting up voice mail.