Are We There Yet? He's texting just like it's his full-time job Lori Clinch My darling son Vernon is at that fun age where he believes that he is invincible, unconquerable and wise beyond his years. Even when others suffer the consequences of bad judgment, Vernon thinks nothing of smiling in the face of adversity and saying, "It'll never happen to me." So when his good friend O'Roy complained to Vernon and the rest of his friends that his parents' cell phone bill was out of sight due to overages on his text messaging, they say that my young Vernon laughed himself sick. "How many minutes did you say you used?" they say that Vernon chortled. "I don't know," replied O'Roy, "but my mom's real mad, my dad's enraged, and I may have to do chores for the rest of my life just to pay them back." They say that Vernon not only chuckled at O'Roy's predicament, but that he boasted that he himself had never used too many of his minutes, and added, "Wow, O'Roy, you must have been text messaging every five minutes to build up a bill like that." Then Vernon's good and dear friend Matilda reported she, too, had walked in on a set of steaming mad parents. "Gosh, Matilda," they say Vernon chastised, "you must have been text messaging like it was your job." They say that Vernon actually said, and I quote, "Don't you people know how to make a simple call?" Naturally I knew none of this when I opened our cell phone bill the other day. At the time, I was anticipating an average and uneventful afternoon of bill paying. In fact, I was yawning, sipping on a can of Diet Coke and thinking that all was right in our cell-phone world. I was anticipating that my bill paying would be uneventful when an astronomical dollar amount leapt at me from my "amount due" box. Granted, I, too, like to yak. Yet I knew this expense wasn't mine because I had taken the time to add my groupies into my cellular circle of friends. My husband can barely stand to make a call, much less go over on his minutes, so there was no sense in spending time on his page. Being wise to the ways of today's adolescents, I went straight to the voluminous full page tally of one Vernon Clinch. I quickly scanned the charges and saw that my own young and precious boy had been texting like nobody's business. He'd not only been taking the time to say "hi" to no fewer than 50 people in 12 different regions, but my smooth-talking teenager went to the effort of sending them pictures, information and a fun-filled home movie. Naturally, I knew I should not wait until Vernon returned home to drill him about his bill. I was mad, I was crazed, I was scared to death that Vernon would text the world before he walked in the door. So I called him in the middle of my meltdown. One could almost imagine Vernon's dismay when he heard my news. One could practically sense his anguish and smell his defeat. "What do you mean, I have an astronomical bill for text messaging?" "I mean you have an astronomical bill for text messaging." "No stinking way!" "Oh, totally way!" "But I only text when it's important or when I have something important to say." "Turns out you should be internalizing a bit more. Do you know what this means?" "That I should be real sorry and never do this again? "Uh, no! This means that you're in big trouble, little mister, that you have big bills to pay, that you're going to have to put your nose to the grindstone, work your fingers to the bone, and furthermore, this means that you're going to have to tell your father, the great cell phone hater and penny pincher of all time." "Can't you tell him?" "I don't think so." "But you have such a way." "I do - but I think I'll save it for my own dilemmas." "C'mon, Mom, take one for the team and do it for me?" "I would," I told him, and then I paused for effect before I added, "except I don't want to." Vernon's suffering with the best of them right now. He and O'Roy and dear sweet Matilda are out of the loop and restricted in their technological social lives. And if Vernon's father has his way, Vernon should have free use of his cell phone again sometime in the year 2026. By then, someone may be willing to pay him to text like it was his job. Lori Clinch is the mother of four sons and the author of the book "Are We There Yet?" You can reach her at www.loriclinch.com.