Friday, August 21, 2009

CATCH-UP POST

Oh dear - it's been 10 days.
A brief catch -up then:
Finally got to meet an Internet friend in person. Alberta Ann and her husband Wilford came by for supper on their way to Vancouver Island. I think Dave scared them a little with his overall Dave-ness, but they handled it fairly well! I'll post a picture or 2 at some point.
While they were in our neck of the woods our son was away camping and managed to lose his cell phone in Osoyoos Lake for the second year in a row!
Before trip.......
Me: Don't lose your phone in the lake like you did last year.....
Son: (a tad scornfully) I'm not going to do that again mom!
After trip.....
Me: (Innocently) So you lost your phone in the lake, eh?
Son: (exasperated) The only reason I lost it was because it was in the pocket of my shorts when I jumped in the lake!
Me (I have no response to this stunning logic, and my tongue is now bleeding from biting it)
So...Off we go to the phone store to get him a new phone. He's on my contract, so I get the bill, but he pays me back. All this will change when he's 19 and a legal adult!
Anyhoo, fortunately I have a $150.00 credit towards a new phone.
Unfortunately, he doesn't want any of those cheap phones.
Fortunately he wants to buy a phone just like mine!
Unfortunately I got mine on an extreme promotion ($49.00) and the same phone now costs 400.00 MORE!
Fortunately the girl at the phone store encourages us to call our service provider and HAGGLE!
Unfortunately I'm not so good at haggling, and while I get some discount on the monthly contract I don't get a much discount on the actual phone, just my 150.00 credit, leaving phone still costing $300.00.
Fortunately the girl at the phone store tells me to CALL BACK AGAIN and KEEP HAGGLING!
Unfortunately this whole process takes over an hour and Dave is waiting for me to get to work
Fortunately my son gets on the phone and does a bit of haggling himself and we eventually get another 150.00 off the phone, so son is OK with paying 150.00 himself and we are feeling stoked about the whole affair. (while forgetting that we wouldn't have to be paying anything at all if he hadn't lost another phone in the lake).
Unfortunately son has little money to last until payday, so fortunately mom pays for the phone and then son buys mom a latte to celebrate and all is rainbows and sparkles and dolphins and unicorns and lollipops between mom and son. Son must pay mom back next payday. Mom feels like a dorky pushover, but wants son to have phone so mom can keep track of son. Mom wonders if she is normal, decides she is NOT normal, but doubts she will ever be able to do anything about it.
Son (who has a day off) goes home to play with new phone. Mom goes to work to earn money to pay for roof over son's head, future crises, etc.
More later,
Kathryn : )

4 comments:

Deborah said...

Mom is normal, believe me. Either that, or we're both totally abnormal and just think we're fine. Hasn't somebody made a collection of how-i-lost-my-cell-phone stories?

Christine said...

Kids! Mine don't want "those cheap phones" either. I say, "It makes phone calls doesn't it?" and they look at me like I just landed on earth from Planet Hopeless

Unknown said...

Can you buy insurance on the phones when you get them? We have done this, thankfully, with Lizzie. She has gone through about 8 phones in the last two years. The last time I didn't have the money to buy insurance on the new phone and now she is using a very broken phone that only works when it wants to. Can't afford the $200 to get a new cheap one, which she wouldn't be caught dead with!

Kathryn said...

Hi Connie,
Gosh, I don't know if we can buy insurance for total loss. We can buy an extended warranty, but I don't know whther to or not, since the warranty could last longer than he has the phone! I'll check into the insurance thing.
Kathryn : )