Category: Amuse Me

I have decided to dedicate today to Robyn and Todd. I may not be a Sooner, but I’m an Aggie so I’m sworn to cheer for anyone out to beat the hell out of “tu”! (or “texas” as Robyn would say.)

I went out earlier to get some milk and noticed all the tu fans heading in to the local sports bar across the street. When I noticed the guy in the burnt orange shirt, I rolled down my window and yelled out a hearty “Boomer Sooner!!!” just for Robyn & Todd!

The game is on and I need to go cheer. They are counting on me…

Time to share a little story about a 10-year old boy and the Mom that might allow him to see 11.

You see … on Sunday, September 29th at about 9am, I was laying in bed in my room and Jason was supposed to be watching TV in the living room. I saw him walk back in to his room – where the PC and the wireless hub are located (it was close to the cable outlet so it worked well at the time.) I figured he just went to retrieve a toy or something like that. After awhile I realized that things were too quite and he had never returned to the living room.

I got up and used the stealth Mom super-powers to go quietly to his door and quickly open it. He jumped up from in front of the computer and quickly slid in the keyboard tray. I made him move out of my way … and found my debit card (the ATM card with the Visa logo) on the keyboard drawer, tucked under the keyboard.

He tried to tell me the cat must have brought it in to his room.

I didn’t buy it. He was grounded from all electronic devices for the day – no TV, no computer, no gameboy, nothing. I told him then that if he used the credit card he should tell me now because I *would* find out later. And he would be in a lot more trouble when I did. He insisted he hadn’t used it.

My instinct was that he might have tried to sign up for a membership at a site like KillerSims.com or someplace like that – where you get more goodies if you are a member.

Late last night I decided to look at my online bank statement – I wanted to see if my PayPal fund transfer had gone through. Hmmmm… well, lookie there. 9/29 – a charge for $24.95 from CCBill.com. Interesting … very interesting.

I called CCBill.com this morning – their 800 number was on my bank account. I was asked for my membership name. The conversation went a lot like this:
Me: Uhhh… I don’t even know if I have a membership. I just discovered a charge on my credit card.
CC Guy: Ok, what’s your account number and I can look it up.
Me: Ok (rattle off account number.)
CC Guy: Christine Selleck? (Address?)
Me: Yes, that’s me … but that hasn’t been my address for years.
CC Guy: Do you know a Jason?
Me: Yes, my 10 year old son. Who hijacked my credit card a week and a half ago.
CC Guy – with a tone of shock: 10 years old? Uhhhmmm…
Me: What did he use to buy with it?
CC Guy: Uh, well … he signed up for a porn site.
Me: Hysterical laughter Really? Oh my. Which one? Oh my.
CC Guy: TeenNudies.com. (No – I’m not linking it. You want to go there you’ll have to type it in yourself.)

While I laughed non-stop, he proceeded to kindly offer to cancel the account for me. However, he couldn’t reverse the charges. So I had to call the bank for that.

“Hello? I’d like to report an unauthorized use of my bank card. My son took it out of my wallet and used it to sign up for (insert dramatic pause) TeenNudies.com”

The bank woman was cracking up as much as I was. Even funnier (well, if you are amused like I am) is the fact that in all her years of working there she had never had a call like mine – until earlier today from another mom!

The computer is losing it’s keyboard & mouse tonight. I will have them stored in a safe place where he can’t get them. He won’t be using the computer for the rest of October. I will be setting up logging on the wireless hub. Special permissions for his very own log-in on Windows 2000.

TeenNudies.com??? Oh dear Lord. Puberty has arrived, hasn’t it? I’m in trouble now…

Anyone ever try out CyberSitter? Feedback? Any other Mean-Mom tracking software packages out there I can try?

Since I was complaining (again) about Texas earlier, I should point out the Government Guide to the Most Livable States. The states I would move to within a heartbeat if I could are Minnesota and Massachusetts – which came in at number 1 and number 5 respectively. Texas? 29. You can view the 43 Negative and Positive Factors that they used to come up with the results if you are interested. [via Silflay Hraka … again.]

At least I don’t live in Louisiana or Mississippi though… they are at 49 and 50 on the list. Guess someone has to be last. So, where would you live if you could pick any state to live in?

Woke up early this morning (rather surprising considering I stayed up way too late last night) and decided it was time to catch up on reading some of the blogs out there.

I head on over to Michele’s site. She was kind enough to point out SiflayHraka, who sums up posts from around the blog world all in one place. For people like me this is great, I just don’t have time to read them all.

At Siflay Hraka’s site I discovered a lovely gem titled “For Good Health: Please Wash Your Hands”. Oh my. I simply wish I had thought of what Sour Bob did. People not washing their hands in a public bathroom really gets to me. I used to work with an uber-professional woman years ago – and I lost all respect for her the day I realized she never washed her hands – not even as she was heading off to lunch. Come on people, you’re spreading cooties here! Wash ’em up! I don’t want your germs! Ewwww… ICK!

Speaking of restaurants, after I wrapped up the stuff I’ve been working on this past week to help out Jennifer, I went to get a late bite to eat with Mike. Here we are at T.G.I.Friday’s, and I realize that there is this rather old couple at the table across from us. Old old old. The sort of people that you normally find at the 4pm lunch rush at Golden Corral, not at Friday’s well after 10pm at night. I was puzzled. Bewildered. Amused. I just couldn’t figure out why they were there so late … and then it finally came to me. They were there for breakfast! *bada-boom!* (Ok, so maybe you just had to be there…) Why is it that the older people get, the earlier they eat though? Who needs to eat dinner at 4pm? And do you think they washed their hands?

I don’t smoke, so it annoys me to no end when I get told that I can’t take a break to do things at work like surf the web or make short and sweet blog posts, but the smokers can go hang out outside and puff away. Jennifer even suggested that I should get a wireless modem for my Handspring Visor and then go outside and blog from outside, enjoying the same amount of time the smokers take for a break.

Now, thanks to Dick, I don’t need any of that! Oh no … I can just take a Cyber Cigarette Break! Ah ha! That’s all I needed all along… Nothing quite like a good refreshing cigarette – even if it’s only virtual!

Unfortunately, I don’t think the boss is going to see that as being the same thing…