WHEN TO DISOWN YOUR SON

My son is home from college for the holidays, and I am catching up on a year's worth of mothering. He's been at school for two semesters, and then spent the summer working in Chicago, so I have not had him home for an actual year.

Today, in the spirit of giving and Christmas and the fact that tomorrow is his birthday, I took him to Radio Shack to get his cell phone 'ungraded.' It sounds good, he gets a prettier one, and it doesn't cost me a penny because all I have to do is extend my contract with AT&T for another couple of years.

So he got a new cell. It's nicer. Big deal.

Until we got home.

Josiah then began reading the little instruction book that comes with it upon my recommendation. Unless you are the type of person (which I am) that will continue to push every single button and every single combination of keys over and over again until you discover all the ins and outs of the electronic equipment (which is the only reason I become the computer guru at two different jobs without ever having taken a single computer class), you honestly are better off reading the instruction book which is commonly written by someone who is the least qualified to write anything worth reading - you should read "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" and yes, that honestly is a book.

Wait... where was I?

Oh, yeah, the new cell phone.

So I'm tapping away at the computer keyboard as I normally am and Josiah is playing with the new phone and suddenly...

Josiah speaks to the cell and clearly says "Call Mom's cell."

Then my phone rings.

HIS PHONE IS VOICE ACTIVATED.

I am never going to forgive him.