Kids These Days

Audrey wants to have a playdate tomorrow. So she called her friend to arrange it. She dialed the number, put the phone to her ear and listened for a few moments. Then, with a very puzzled look on her face, she handed me the phone and said, "It's not working. It's just making a weird noise."

So I took the phone from her and put it to my ear. The weird noise was a busy signal.

She is 9 1/2 and has never in her life heard a busy signal. Between call waiting, voice messaging and texting, not once has she had to actually hang up the phone and try the call again later.

I am beginning to understand what old people mean when they talk about not understanding this new generation. I tell my kids all kinds of great stories about phones and they either don't believe me or they don't get it. Like the fact that phones used to be attached to the wall, so they never got lost. And entire families used to share one phone number. We didn't have caller id, so you could crank call all the boys you had crushes on, and they would never know it was you. And we used to call a number and a man's voice would tell you the Time and Temperature. I don't remember why we needed to know the time and temperature all the time, but we sure called that number a lot.

In other happenings, some of my heretofore low-maintenance children have transformed over night into very high-maintenance children. The previous high-maintenance children have remained high-maintenance. Names will not be named, but suffice it to say I have a household full of very needy children these days. I blame the changes on the start of school and raging hormones.

I will say that having Alisa out of the house has turned her into a very low-maintenance child. She stopped by tonight to pick up a fan and borrow butter. Cute, huh?