Busted!

Last night was not fun at the Fxxxxx (have to remain anonymous) house. While paying bills, Perry noticed a significant increase in our cell phone bill. He said there had been a $30-something increase last month, but he was in a hurry when he was paying the bill and didn't investigate why. He planned to do it later and forgot. Last night, the increase was about $66. Certainly enough to warrant immediate investigation. The cause? Emily has been text messaging...a LOT!

Our cell plan does not cover texting so every message, in or out, costs us 20 cents each. Do you know how many text messages (at 20 cents each) it would take to run up a $100 bill in two months? To top it off, Emily was given strict instructions when she received her cell phone: NO TEXTING!

So, after silently venting his frustration, Perry confronted her about it and told her that she was going to have to repay us as well as losing her phone for 2 weeks. Any money she receives for Christmas will be coming directly to us and then she will be working off the remainder through sizeable chores at home. Because we realize that texting is the preferred communication choice of teenagers, when her debt is paid, she will be given the option of paying $4.99 per month to have texting added to her phone. The $4.99 will be totally her responsibility to pay and will allow her 400 messages per month.

Since about 8:30pm last night, it has been very quiet (except for a loud-mouth toddler) in our house and you would never know a teenager lives her because she hasn't shown her face except to walk out to the car this morning to go to school. The commute was made in complete silence though. I wonder if this will last the entire 2 weeks? Nope, I won't let go on that long. She happily made the choice to text even though she knew it was against the rules and now she will have to learn to happily live with the consequences. No exaggerated pouting allowed.