“Mom! I have like 100 friends texting me and I can’t respond! If I don’t get a new phone today I won’t…” and from there my little sister, Gina, rambles at a rate of three million two hundred thousand and four words per second about God knows what. I’m pretty sure it had something to do with the world exploding and the fate of the whole human species resting in her responding to those text messages. The way she was speaking to my mother, it had better have been that important.
This irrational rant was no isolated incident, either. I’d say for every three hours that Gina spends awake at home there is at least one similar episode. Tell her she can’t go to her 13th concert of the summer she’ll run to her bedroom and slam the door behind her, allowing the torrential hormones to brew and intensify within the closed compartment. Remind her that drama camp starts tomorrow – an experience she was begging for only months ago – and you better have a poncho and galoshes ready for the emotional downpour that will ensue. I know that fourteen year old girls are supposed to be moody and emotionally fickle, but damn.
But back to the cell phone thing. My sister – like many other kids whose families can provide them these luxuries – is addicted to technology. If she’s not playing basketball or telling my parents how horrible they are for telling her to spend some quality time with her little sister, she’s most likely doing one of the following: giving her friends minute-to-minute updates on what she is doing via text message (while also giving her thumbs quite the workout); she is glued to her MacBook looking at the latest Jonas Brothers pictures or giving her friends minute-to-minute updates on what she is doing via Facebook message; she is listening to music on her iTouch; or she is doing any combination of the three.
You might say, “Aw come on, Tom. Cut the girl some slack. All the kids are like that these days.” You might say, “Tom, she’s young. She’ll grow out of it.” You might even say something else that I was not clever enough to come up. But to any of those response I would say, “You know what. You’re probably right.” But I think we should question deeper anyway.
Consider this recent example. Wanting to bond with my little sister who tells me she wishes I would spend more time with her, I suggested we play some good old fashioned Rock Band. Don’t get me wrong, rocking out on the drums made me feel like the drummer I always wanted to be; but bonding time didn’t happen. Between each song – literally – Gina’s thumbs furiously scrambled over her mini-keypad to respond to no less than three friends’ texts. Our dialogue that night went something like this:
Me: Hey Gi, come on. You can text them after we’re done.
Gina: Ok, one second.
Me (after several seconds): Gi!
Gina (closes her phone and clicks the Green button to join the song): Ok.
(Repeat this conversation for each song until she says she’s going to bed).
Despite her being physically less than three feet from me, she could not have felt further away.
If we are all unfortunate enough to be traveling in the same minivan, she’ll have her iTouch blasting so you can sing along with all her favorite pop/emo songs. Only the piercing screams of our nine-year-old sister Angie can sunder the sonic wall surrounding her (to which she unfailingly responds, “Angie SHUT UP! You are such a brat!”).
Just one day before the cell phone argument, Gina asked me to go on a walk with her. She dropped her phone and cracked the screen one day prior. This time she’d have no choice but to talk to me! We spent the better part of an hour and a half chatting as we wandered along the sidewalk-less estate section, through Colonia High School, and even by her new Alma Matter, St. John Vianney Elementary School, which was preparing for the annual town fair. Lo and behold, I discovered that Gina was, in fact, a real person – a human being with experiences, opinions, insecurities, joys, and goals. We talked about basketball and our Dad’s obsession and paranoia about her potential as a star student-athlete; about Aunt Gina – whom Gina was named after – and how awesome of a person she was; growing up as chubby kids and the lingering insecurities dwelling in the last ounces of belly button baby fat; about how we’ve hit the parent jackpot; about my time in high school and her time to come; and about how silly emotions can be when you look back on them. We took a ride to the mall to see if Verizon could replace her phone. When I had to break the news to her that she wouldn’t get the new one until Tuesday she shocked me by saying, “Eh… I guess I can wait.” Thinking back on the past couple hours, I thought to myself, “Holy shit. Gina is awesome. Maybe she’ll turn out ok after all.”
Hours later, my mother returned home. Somewhere between our walk and just past suppertime, the texting withdrawals had set in. As I sat reading, I heard the frantic pleading. “Mommy! I can’t wait until Tuesday! I’ll pay the seventy dollars for the new phone! Please, Mommy! Please!” A starving technology addict replaced the cool little sister that I got to know earlier that day, but at least I know that there is a glimmer of hope somewhere beneath the overly dramatic and wired surface. After all, she’s just a kid. She’ll grow out of it. Right?
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