Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Technology saves the Day!!

I gave my kids cell phones because I wanted them to be reachable. But I told my son to use the house phone when he was at home to save our minutes.
Yesterday, he was talking to his girlfriend on our house phone. I needed to remind him of something, so I texted him using my computer. Our service provider allows that. I don't have the brain capacity to learn such a high tech computation.
He answered, adding that he was going to bed soon, as he felt 'garbagey'. New word, but rather apt, I suppose. He was a bit under the weather. I'd noticed that much when I went downstairs to the inner sanctum of the basement's TV room to tell him to clean that pig sty up.
Well, this morning, my husband flicked on his bedroom light and told him to get up. It was what we do every school day.
I added my voice to that order when I got up.
Nothing happened, which in itself is the norm. He's a teen. Jumping out of bed early on a school day is against their personal code of honour.
Finally, his older sister came downstairs.
"What's with Alex?"
"He's not up yet," I answered.
"He's sick."
"How do you know?"
She shrugged. "He texted me."
Oh. He texted her across the house. Hmm. I went into his bedroom, and found him peeking out of his blankets. "I'm sick," he whispered hoarsely. "And you and Dad don't care."
"Why didn't you tell us?"
"Too sick to talk."
He was warm, and a bug had been flying around his school, so this wasn't unexpected. I told him to go back to sleep, I'd deal with him later.
When I returned to the kitchen, I asked my daughter what her brother had said in his text.
"He wrote, 'I'm sick. Help. Save me.'"
So, I pondered, technology has saved the day. We would have kept yelling at him until someone got mad and it set the whole house on edge, especially since I had to drive my daughter to her university classes within the hour.
"So the cell phones earned their keep," I commented. "Don't you think that's nice?"
My daugther gave me one of those unsympathetic, older sister looks. "He's faking it."
Technological changes may be new and exciting, and we're grateful for them, but there are some things that never change.

5 comments:

Lisa Mondello said...

Thanks for the laugh. It sounds like my house.

Lisa

Margaret Daley said...

Thanks, Barbara, for sharing. It reminded me of when my son was a teen and I had to try and get him up to go to school.
Margaret

Pat Davids said...

Thanks for the chuckle. I hope your son gets to feeling better soon, but to text, Help, Save me, across the house is a hoot.

A friend had a son who sat on her glass coffee table and it broke sending him to the hospital for a few stitches. When she came into the exam room, she found him using his cell phone to take a picture of his "wound" before it was stitched up. Boys and their toys!
Pat

Stephanie Newton said...

I learned to text out of self-preservation since it's pretty much the only way my kids communicate anymore. Sometimes we'll be in the car texting each other, LOL.

Mystery and Mayhem said...

Pat, are you some distant relative? I think my nephew did that, too! What a sight that would have been! Let's be grateful there wasn't a photocopier around.

Texting. Ahh. All that technology, esp. in the car. My friend can't get her On Star to recognize her voice when she wants to call her husband, Andrew, and she ends up screaming at it, and her 7 year old daughter says, "Mummy, calm down! This is what you say,"

Then to the On Star box, the little girl says, "Dial Andrew" And the blasted thing obeys! Grr.

Oh, yes, by the way, my son made a miraculous recovery at lunch, when he was due to go to the hairdresser's. Coincidentally, school ends at noon on Wednesdays.

There can't be a connection, right?