March 30, 2002

How Do You Spell Relief?

I had my final writing class the other night. Its too bad that was the last one. Ill miss it. It was such a short class only 4 weeks that the group dynamic was just beginning to form and then POOF! It was over.

As is usual for my daughter, she called me during the class. Its like an undeniable urge for her. If she thinks Im enjoying myself, she must call and interrupt. She must. I really cant fault her because I really think that its built in radar and beyond her control. An instinct akin to the call of the wild, if you will. It was no surprise then, that when I checked my phone after class I had missed a phone call from home.

I looked for a message. Surely she wanted me to stop and buy her something on the way home. Last week it was pizza flavored Pringles. Yuck! No message. How odd. I started to call her and then changed my mind. If she didnt care enough about whatever her current craving was to leave a message I wasnt going to invite aggravation by calling. Besides, this gave me a perfect opportunity to NOT get whatever she was hankering for.

When I got home the dog, faithful and not-the-brightest-candle-on-the-cake Blossom was waiting for me at the door eagerly. I greeted her appropriately with a scritch and a scratch and headed upstairs where I assumed I would find my daughter at the computer, instant messaging while simultaneously talking on both the house phone and her cell phone. Thats the regular routine after all. The kitchen, where the computer resides, was strangely quiet.

Chickie?

No answer, so upstairs to her bedroom I go. Shes in bed buried under the covers. Odd. I patted her rear and said goodnight. As I started to turn off her light and leave the room I heart a plaintive mewling sort of noise from under the covers.

Mom?

Yes

My cell phone is on the table. You can have it.

Uh-oh whats up?

OK but why?

The phone bill came in. Its real high.

My heart skipped a beat. In my current state of unemployment, thats about the last thing I want to hear.

How bad is it? As I make a beeline to the table to find the bill.

Real bad. Mines 700 and yours is 500.

The heck with skipping a heartbeat. My heart flat out stopped. I had the bill in my hand and was furiously looking for the amount due. They must have made a mistake. Yeah, but try and convince THEM that they made a mistake! Dadgummit why did they have to change the bill format THIS month?! I cant find the amount due!

That cant be right. You must have read it wrong.

Misery was dripping from her voice. No. I saw it.

By this time I had found the amount due and it was not an insane $1200. It was pretty much the amount thats normal. I felt the weight of the world float up off my shoulders. Chickie, however, was still shaken.

No. I saw it!

I showed her the bill with the amount due. Then I showed her the summary of minutes used 700 and 500 minutes not dollars!

Talk about a change in a person! She got 2 inches taller instantly and the biggest smile Ive EVER seen spread across her face and she began to babble.

I was so scared. I couldnt eat. I didnt even want to be on the internet I told everyone I was gonna be dead. I asked Pierre for $200. I told Vanessa I was gonna respect my mom for the rest of my life. I said

I walked off grinning. Nice to know she at least recognizes that that would have been a royal screw up.

Call your friends and tell them youre still alive. I called back up the stairs to her. And you can have your cell phone back!

I walked into the kitchen. Then I turned around and went back to the foot of the stairs.

Chickie? I called up.

Yes, Mommie?

Next time you think you royally screwed something up it might help your case if you cleaned up the kitchen and vacuumed.

MAW-AHM! (Thats a protracted teenage version of mom)

So much for respecting ones mother forever.

Happy Spring y’all!

Hoppy! Hoppy spring and low cell bills. I had to call up the co we have. it’s for emergency only, they tried to charge me an overage when i didn’t even make sixty one minutes. HA! they fixed it tho she said it’s in the pc wrong, i’ll have to call again next month to get it fixed. 🙂 Oye veh. Hand over the ice cream spoon please, it’s way melty here and our ac seems to have some trouble downstairs

why am i not signe din???? ribbits and rabbits! the easter ribbit – froglette

Yeah… I bet the relief was flooding after you saw the bill… ::PHEW:: Happy Spring!

Thank goodness for the stumbling…hahahaha….I am happy to have you. Yours is spring ours is summer. We have ended our schoolyear last March and soon summer classes start. I hope by next schoolyear I’ll teach. But I guess I will be more for the spiritual formation for our college students. I hope we start build friendship. TAke care!

From the way things are going over at the Watchers diary, you spell “relief” T-O-R-I-N…at least I think he’s relieved something for you anyway 😉 Harley nsi (Yay! I remembered!)

Whew. I’d have been having a heart attack or six, myself. So glad it worked out. With a smile…fresh from a new entry over in OD…T the U

Nectar

April 1, 2002

even I held my breath chuckles off

Hey thjanks for ya note hun hugs

The Watcher

Crowbar? Please and tendjewberrymud.

And snorking at Harley’s note. Heheh. Yeh. Well, Torin’s doing his best to relieve Sunshine’s itches. He really is working hard.

Wow, i can see her concern and yours over the cost! Good thing she was readin it wrong {:o)

The Efficient Oak

April 2, 2002

Heh. A phone bill that size would terrify me…not even doing the housework all month would help 🙂

AHA! It posted! I had been reading but must have caught the system when the notes feature was hitting a jag…. all my pithy and clever notes wouldn’t post. OH well, so glad the phone bill was only a close call…. snork!

one of my kids did that to me once, years ago and it WAS $500, not minutes. So consider yourself lucky. Taking a kid’s cell phone away sux. By the way, if I ever wanted my house cleaned, I would leave my adult childen alone with the house for the whole weekend. I knew they would have parties, because the house would always be spotless when I came home, and even the garbage cans would be washed out

thanks for all of your supportive notes. appreciate your friendship alot. hugs.

Relief is much easier to spell when the mobile phone ends up in the washing machine!! 13 notes from dearWolfie no less. How to begin to reply? I think you asked me if the poems are old and yes ..many are and previously deleted when a friend told me they were woeful. I am no judge of my own words! Re poem Antonio…I wanted to find very simple and few words to conjure up images so that

in the end it would say all I wanted to say. I have at least another 50 poems to re-write and some have been up before and others not whilst some few are too personal and I have to keep them private. But 95% goes on to these entries. I fear that so many say the same things about love and loneliness, pain and are all a little the same. I can only write what comes from the ether! Old, new Alex

Whew ! you had me worried there as well. I’ve just finished catching up on your entries – and I enjoyed your story.

Whoops! that was me above (DrmDrgn)

*k*i*s*s* (is how i spell…) sorry could not resist, I howled with laughter at your entry. I have always wanted to take a writing class…

Mns

April 3, 2002

ahahahaha… good one, but don’t ya hate it when your heart drops into your shoes for those few loooong moments? i was on the edge of my chair here till the ending 🙂

Willy & Wilma

The area code changed & the first I knew something was wrong was getting a phone bill for over $600 for the PREVIOUS month & I was well into another. My dial up # was not a free one. Ma Bell used to cancel mistake charges but not the new Ma.

if you use the same service (which I’m sure you don’t) that I use, the bill would be $1200/mo no matter how many minutes you talked….actually, both phones could be turned off and the bill would still be high. Didn’t do the dishes? Teenagers! Baaa Humbug!

ermentrude

April 22, 2002

One way to make the phone bill a nice surprise!!!

LOL..this entry is older but I’m flipping through, lol. That’s too funny. I would have flipped out cuz I pay my own bill and no way is 700 ever going to go out on a phone, lol.