Doesn’t She Have Homework To Do Or Something?

We’ve elected not to give our eleven-year-old daughter a cell phone because we’d rather not have her join the bandwagon of having her face glued to it every waking hour of the day. With that said, we’ve let her know that her friends are welcome to call the house phone as long as they use proper general phone etiquette. For the most part, all of them have… except one particular girl.

To say this girl is a poster child for phone addicts would be a vast understatement. She rings the house as many as ten times a day, to the point where I have to change the ringtone on the phone after getting tired of hearing it. If my daughter isn’t at home, this girl calls literally every ten or fifteen minutes asking again for her. The calls are never anything important: “I’m at the shoe shop with my mom. Is [Brand A] or [Brand B] better?” “Some girl likes this boy.” “Some girl said this and that at cheerleader practice.”

I’ve tried patiently asking the girl to limit her calls to once a day, but she has blatantly disregarded the request, and she’ll say, “Okay, this is the last call for the day, okay?” and then call later and say, “Just ten seconds! I have to tell her something real quick!”

Our family leaves for two weeks during the Christmas holiday season, and when we return, I discover 227 missed calls on the phone and our voicemail completely full; each and every message is from that little brat. After spending a solid twenty minutes manually deleting them all, I call and inform her that she is permanently banned from calling our house.

Only two hours later, the phone rings with her number, and I am near speechless.

Girl: “Is [Daughter] there?”

Me: “Did you not understand what I said to you earlier?”

Girl: “I know, I know, but this is really important. I promise!”

Me: “What is it?”

Girl: “It’s kind of private… but I promise, it’s an emergency. I really have to talk to her. Two minutes, tops!”

Me: “Last call, understand?”

I hand my daughter the phone long enough for her to say, “Hello?” and then put the phone back to my ear to see what it is.

Girl: “Oh, my God, [Daughter], you are not going to believe this! I was at [place] and spotted [Boy] and [Other Girl] holding hands! I swear on the Holy Bible, I saw it!”

Me: “GOODBYE, [GIRL]!”

I hung up. And, astonishingly enough, it took three more intercepted calls over the following week before she finally got the message. It’s just a shame some parents won’t teach their kids phone etiquette.