Girl, You're Gonna Get Arthritis.....

....that's what I told Blonde 2 on Saturday. The girl can text on her cell phone at lightning speed. I have no idea how she does it. Remember when we first learned about computers causing carpal tunnel syndrome? Well, I'm convinced that there's going to be something like that that is the result of texting. Something like KATS...knotty arthritic thumbs syndrome. I guess we'll know in time.

There's more to this than getting arthritis from texting. Saturday afternoon Law-man and I were out running a couple of errands and we picked up the mail on our way out of the driveway. Nothing fun. Just bills. Law-man proceeded to open these bills. One of the bills was for our cell phone. When Law-man saw the balance due on that bill, I thought I was gonna have to pull over and give him CPR. Oh, not to worry. He found the air in his lungs within seconds because I heard his exclamation loud and clear. The balance due was more than 2x our usual bill. Normally it's $135; this bill is $295. Do you hear all the air being sucked out of my lungs?

I immediately knew what the problem was. Blonde 2 and that lightning speed texting!

Law-man and I agreed to pay the $5.99/mo. for 300 texts for Blonde 2. The 300 texts includes both incoming and outgoing. In January, Blonde 2 was convinced she needed to upgrade to UNLIMITED. She even offered to pay for it (she's got a part-time job and does babysitting).

To make a long-story short, we caved. Maybe I should say I caved because Law-man still is not in favor of the unlimited plan. In early February we upgraded B2's plan. However, we'd already missed 9 days in the billing cycle. And a costly 9 days it would prove to be. In those short 9 days, B2 managed to rack up $125 in texting costs! That's right folks. ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-FIVE!

Needless to say this was going to be a topic of conversation with B2. And in a not-so-pleasant sort of way.

Law-man wasted no time bringing it up when she got home Saturday night or at least as soon as possible considering we had a couse full of company when she arrived. I had suggested we handle this very matter-of-factly. Well Law-man did. "YOU OWE ME $125!" Yeah, that pretty much covers it. It was already 11:00 and when we're all tired and discussing some issue, it usually ends up worse than it started so I suggested we all go to bed and we'd discuss it the following day.

Law-man goes out on patrol on Sunday mornings so I handled this. I found the bill, showed her where the overage had occurred and also pointed out that her total texts for the month was 4,000. Yes, FOUR THOUSAND. That's over 100 per day! So not necessary! So we had this discussion (pretty much one-sided) that just because you can do something doesn't mean it's necessary or the right thing. I told her that the usage needed to come down. Way down. Within reason. Otherwise, she would loose it. Not just the texting but the entire phone.

Now she's on a mission to take every baby-sitting job that comes her way to get the debt cleared. She's got until March 13 so we'll see. Honestly, I think she's got the money but it's cuttin' in to her spending cash to have to pay mom & dad. She's been saving for a weekend youth group trip she's taking at the end of the month. Guess she's learning early that sometimes things don't always go as planned.

Law-man and I have recovered. We've got air in our lungs again. And, I think Law-man now agrees that the unlimited plan was a good thing. I did the math. Without it, B2 would have owed us $370.