MindSpinner

For my daughter, it’s still summer. Mother and brother may be tearing out the door every morning to get to first period on time, but young Ms. Footloose has two more weeks of leisure. She’s bored out of her mind.

I walked into the kitchen this afternoon and found a grapefruit and a banana I had purchased only yesterday, with the unimaginative notion that somebody might eat them, likely me. This was not to be. The grapefruit sat on the table, leering with a snaggle-toothed grin. It had a black magic marker face, reminiscent of a jack-o-lantern’s, except that on a jack-o-lantern, one seldom sees freckles or multiple stab wounds. The largest gash was sealed shut with a Band-Aid. Dangling earrings marked the position of non-existent pink earlobes. It seemed a happy grapefruit, in spite of everything, though no longer an edible one.

The banana, for its part, was securely affixed face down (it too had a face) atop the grapefruit by means of a steak knife, which was sunk through banana far into the fruit beneath.

There had been a story, I was told, and pictures taken to record the tale.

One notes that no coveted junk foods were involved.

The independently owned pharmacy where I have our family’s prescriptions filled stocks gift items, knick knacks, and greeting cards, so sometimes while I’m waiting for a prescription I wander through the aisles, looking. Yesterday I noted a plate emblazoned with an inspirational quote: “Reach for the moon. If you fall short, you may land on a star.”

Wrong. If you fall short, you’ll just burn up on re-entry. And there aren’t any stars short of the moon. Good thing, too.

I am generally a positive thinker, if for no other reason than the fact that I tend to get better results that way, but I have to fault this business of rearranging the universe.

Today I got my Cingular bill, and this evening I made my monthly call to customer service. As far as I can tell, there will be no end to monthly bill haggling.

I was determined, from the outset, not to be one of the many parents I know who get shocker phone bills running several hundred dollars. So when I purchased phones and a family plan, I thought I made everything clear to the young Cingular employees who set up my children’s accounts: no text messaging, no Internet, no downloading, no sending pictures: all I wanted my kids to be able to do on their cell phones was make calls. The kids, for their part, were to limit calls until after 7:00 p.m. (I’d paid for “evenings” to start then instead of 9:00.) Precautions were not adequate.

Four months into the cell phone experiment, my bills were running $30-$40 a month more than they should have, and the culprit was downloading, mostly ring tones I was told. “How can my children be downloading ringtones when downloading is disabled?” I asked every month, of one Cingular representative and the next and the next. One Saturday three months ago, after spending two hours on the phone, I found a young man who gave me an answer. “Downloading” by some means or other had been disabled, but the kiddos still had Internet access. If you’ve got Internet access, you can download, right?

At this point Internet access has been blocked for three billing cycles. But we still get an extra $10-$15 in direct billing charges because some untraceable company has been sending games to the kids’ phones. When my bill arrives each month, I grit my teeth and undertake the same ritual. I call Cingular and say, “I’m not going to pay these charges,” and I tell the same story. Even the most helpful reps have not been able help me get the charges stopped, though they are sympathetic and cooperative about taking the charges off my bill.

Parents who are just getting their kids cell phones would do well to be even more careful than I was about limiting what the kids can do with those phones. It pays to watch minutes usage like a hawk, especially in the early months. I’ve even found it necessary to stipulate that phones must be turned off at bedtime on school nights; otherwise, conversations can go on half the night - or all of it. Late night usage results in the phone being taken for safe-keeping at bedtime or service suspended for a few days, but this latter solution is a last resort because de-activating and re-activating a phone is a hassle and does not always go smoothly.

I can’t picture life without cell phones now that my children are adolescents - I can keep up with where my kids are and coordinate our lives much more easily; in that sense cell phones afford some peace of mind. But cell phones are also a hassle and a potential financial nightmare for families on a budget, and forewarned is forearmed.

1) When school starts, life fragments - I am splintered into a half dozen additional roles, each with its own endless action list. Tomorrow the year’s task triage begins. Tomorrow the kids show. No more dilly-dallying with room organization or painting an ugly table or filling out forms or setting up voicemail (didn’t work, anyway). I think everything is ready except me (if you discount e-mail, my access to school admin. software, the non-existent replacement inkjet cartridge for the classroom printer, and my voicemail account). It’s like hearing the gun go off for the beginning of a race and realizing that you’re somehow turned around backward in the starting gate. Standard operating procedure, though, for a new start at a new school.

2) Three days I have weathered life with no Internet. No e-mailing friends. No blogs. No larks through cyberspace. No ready information at my fingertips. No completing a batch of online tasks. Aargh.

So good to be back.

3) The battery for the deaf dog’s anti-bark collar has expired, and I was not prepared. It turns out that these particular batteries are not readily available. So I can’t go pick one up at Wal-Mart or Kroger or Target. I ordered batteries over the Internet on Friday, having tried all three stores, but these batteries must wend their way through ordering and shipping. Today I check on Radio Shack.

In the meantime, I should buy ear plugs and hand them out to the neighbors. Saturday the dog barked all night. Every time I was conscious, he was barking, and I was conscious all too frequently. Last night, I woke twice when he was silent. So, I thought. Somebody’s killed him. Funny I didn’t hear the shot. Perhaps it was a bit of poisoned meat. Yet, this morning he lives. And barks.

Question: I’d have ethical qualms, I think, about debarking a hearing dog. But what about a deaf one? Would he know the difference? What if he’s not stone deaf? Maybe his own voice is the only thing he ever hears. Oh come, batteries, come. The neighbors are not deaf, and neither are we.