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History Repeats Itself…

Mike’s plane landed early today, so I was still on my way to the airport when he called my cell phone to say he was on the ground, through customs, and waiting at Terminal D. They had curb side pick-up available (even though we are on a high terrorist alert) so I picked him up there. I would like to state for the record that I hate Terminal D, and the traffic was simply insane. But I picked him up and all was well.

We stopped by my apartment so he could put his suitcase in his car, and then we decided to go get something to eat. Headed over to Black-Eyed Pea … Fried Pickles … yum. Had fun catching up on everything that was going on, he listened to me babble about work, and a good time was had by all.

After we ate I realized I needed to go over to Target to pick up an extension cord and check out what they had for a better lamp for my office. We made our way through the store, amused by things like all of the “Hello Kitty” items they now carry and things like that. Finally we headed for the check-out counter.

That is where it happened.

I opened my wallet, and discovered that my credit card was missing.

Considering I used it yesterday at Walgreens and at the car inspection place, I know I had it just over 24 hours earlier. And now it was gone, and my PayPal debit card was moved out of the slot it’s normally in and in to the slot by the coin purse.

I knew that there was only one way the cards got moved around like that. Jason. And my ATM/Check card is nowhere in sight.

I called my parents house, and he denied seeing it, touching it, or touching the computer at all today.

(Some of you may be new around here, so you may not know the history behind this. You might want to read that before you continue on…)

So I headed for home, and while I waited on hold for my bank representative to tell her my card was missing, I decided to check out the internet history. For today, not only was there teennudies.com, but this time we have creamypies.com too, and a few AVI files of porn on the desktop.

I’ve been sick, so I’ve been taking Tylenol Flu nighttime formula. Last night I was wired and awake really late, but I slept until about 7:30 or 7:45 this morning, when Jason came in to my room and said he was awake. I now know that he was obviously awake earlier than that and just moving quietly around the apartment, because I never heard any noise. Granted, the medicine may have had an influence on that, and I am a heavy sleeper most of the time anyways.

So I spent well over an hour on hold waiting for the bank to pick up – turned out that the storms out east had closed down three of their call centers, so they were down to just two that were fielding all of the calls. She apologized profusely, and handled the situation very well. My card has been frozen, and the last activity showing on it was Walgreens and the inspection place. No activity for today. I’m getting a new card with a new number, and I’ll pick it up at my local bank branch next week.

She ended the call with some motherly advice. She said that she would guess that’s he’s probably a really smart kid (which he is) and that I should enjoy him. These years will pass too quickly, and soon he will be all grown up. She said to enjoy him, and to enjoy life.

Good advice, but I still can’t believe that it didn’t sink in last time that I would find out. Sometime soon I’ll have to tell you all about the porn video – it was actually almost too hysterical for words.

Meanwhile, EJ has promised to hook me up with spyware, we’re setting up user profiles on all of my computers, and Mike will set up the wireless keyboard and mouse as soon as I buy batteries for them. Can’t do much on a machine with no keyboard or mouse now, can you? And when he’s logged in to the computer he won’t have internet access at all.

I love him dearly, and I know that curiousity is a natural thing. I just wish it didn’t involve all of this! Oh well, it will give me something to laugh about in the years ahead…

By Christine

Christine is an Avenger of Sexiness. Her Superpower is helping Hot Mamas grow their Confidence by rediscovering their Beauty. She lives in the Heights in Houston, Texas, works as a boudoir photographer, and writes about running a Business of Awesome. In her spare time, she loves to knit, especially when she travels. She & her husband Mike have a food blog at Spoon & Knife.

32 replies on “History Repeats Itself…”

My birth mom & my stepdad caught my little brother (now 16) checking out porn sites. He must have been around 12… I really admire the way they handled it. Of course they took away all rights to anything even remotely electronic, but they sat him down and had a conversation about how they’re afraid he’ll get the wrong idea of sex from the sites… that curiousity is understandable, but they want him to respect sex, and they had a conversation around how the sites don’t respect it at all.

Then again, they’re the ones who bought him a pack of condoms before he went on a school ski trip. He cowered down an aisle while they debated on whether or not to get the ribbed ones. Of course, he didn’t need them, but it’s good to know he has an environment where he can talk to them about it.

And please — remind me to tell the story of how my brother stumbled on a dead body while burying porn. Be glad Jason’s only doing it on the computer! 🙂

I think that was what I said a number of times as I left Target. “I’m going to kill him. Oh, I am going to kill him. I can’t believe he did this again, I’m going to kill him.” By the time I got home I got over being mad, I’m just frustrated now that I have to deal with getting a new card and all the hassles that involves.

Can someone show him where the free porn is on the internet so he leaves my credit card alone?

Oh man, I’m sorry you have to deal with this again. But your idea with the wireless keyboard and mouse is a good one 😉
BTW, I’m hoping you are feeling MUCH better when you wake up in the morning 🙂

It’s not only boys I caught my daughter at a site she should not have been checking out some guys in birthday suits. We had a long talk about it. I was going to hook up a laptop in her room and allow her to have wireless access but I have now put that on hold. The net is great but it has it’s evils and I think that the sexual exposure kids are getting these days require parents to be much more pro-active and face the facts that boys do not need to hide a playboy under the mattress. Porn is so prevelant and easy to access that unless you totally truest your kids you have to add some sort of blocking package. But those alone will not solve it as there are sites out there that actually tell the kids how to disable the software so supervision is the only alternative.

We have never fussed over sex and have tried to educate the kids as much as possible. It is better to give them the information and the dangers and precautions that they need to take then to end up with a un-wanted pregnancy or a STD.

That’s really true, Geek. My girl friends & I all got our hands on Playboys, Penthouse and even Playgirls and one point in time or another between the ages of 11 – 13.

Knowledge is power, and I would rather my son be prepared than end up with an STD or a pregnant girlfriend.

Wow. I can’t believe he did it again… and didn’t expect you to notice! I think the lying is the worse of the two evils, personally. But then again, I’m not a mom. 😉 I think I have a couple of links lying around for keyloggers, if you need ’em. Good luck! 🙂

Of course, the bad thing is that he is still lying to you…that’s a bad pattern. The porn is a pretty natural thing for him to want to do…especially as desensitized as kids get these days with the movies, games, etc…and what they show. I think the bank lady had it right as well. You need to punish, of course, he’s lied and stolen from you (again), but you are taking a great course of action with the keyboard, mouse and spyware. Still in all…they do grow up fast. My kid is now 19…but I wouldn’t go back for a minute! 😉

*HUGS* Christine! We now have the computers set up so only one can access the internet and we turn the access off when we aren’t around. We did password BIOS for a while, but, since we have more control over the computers in this house, we dropped that.

I’m so sorry he’s in the pattern of lying and stealing. Maybe a guidance counselor at the school can interact with him on that part. Ours was such a help when Jackie was going through her rough patch last fall.

*HUGS*

It is definitely the fact that he has now taken credit cards a total of 3 times – even though I showed him last fall that we can see it online on the statements when he uses it – that bothers me the most. That and the fact that I told him last night that he had a free pass to not get in trouble if he told me where my credit card was and he denied having it.

But the card is frozen, my purse will be kept where he can’t get to it, and there will be no internet access without me logging on to the machine, and even then everything will be tracked thanks to spyware.

I definitely agree with everyone else … the lying is the bad part, not the porn. Kids are naturally curious, and if it’s not the Internet, then it’ll be late night TV or friends with lax parents. Heck, I can remember when I was close to his age trying to get the girl in King’s Quest I to undress somehow … man, I was a dork.

I laughed and cringed at this. 10 years old? And he’s smart enough to know how to buy a membership, but doesn’t realise that it will show on statements whether or not he lies about it? Odd. Might want to tell him you’ve got spyware installed and will be watching him. And you can take the keyboard. When my brother was younger and kept tying up the phone lines with the computer, my mother took the power cords and the keyboard and kept them in the trunk of her car. Worked.

Hehe…Jason probably has the exact some philosophy that I had at his age…if you lie about it, and adamantly deny that you did anything wrong, you parents can never REALLY know that you did something wrong. Looking back, I realize how stupid that was, but I did have a little bit of help, in the form of a sister. If something was done, and we both denied it, they would never know which one did it, so neither of us got in much trouble because they didn’t want to punish the one that didn’t do anything. We would both just get that talk, trying to make us feel guilty. You know, the “one of you is making the other one look bad” talk. Hehe…

Ok, that made me look bad, huh? Eh, we never did anything bad, really. Although I did steal $5 out of my dad’s wallet once to go buy candy for me and my friends. Oh my god, I was such an idiot.

And I don’t think that 10 is too young to be curious. Most people forget what it’s like to be 9, 10, 11 years old. I know that my friends and I got our hands on some “questionable” material in 7th and 8th grade…I was 11, 12 then.

omigod, i’m late coming into this conversation but i can’t believe he did it again! curiosity kills the cat.. especially the credit card because now you have to do all that stuff to prevent from happening again! oh, i’m so sorry Christine… but what can you do? well, you know how… and i’m glad you’re getting Spyware set up and reconfiguring his logon, etc. hopefully, this will teach him a lesson.

Wow, as if last time weren’t bad enough! You know, the porn is terrible, but it’s the swiping your cards that really gets me – I’d make hime pay back twice what he owes and ground him for a month – but I’m grumpy today. 🙂

And my brother-in-law thought it was bad when his son went online to see Jennifer Lopez in Playboy (He was around 13). He says he knows his son is curious, but he’s got many, many years to discover this stuff and he should just have fun for now. This is a lot different than when kids had to actually go out and buy the stuff at the store. What a great mom you are, I think you’re dealing with it well. Jason is very lucky.

We shouldn’t shun the notion of sex when it comes to our children. I am one that belives the US is too stuffy when it comes to sex, but the wrong messages can be sent out to young impressionable children when they view porn. I personally have already decided that my son will not have a computer in his room. We are already planning on moving the desktop to the family room and making it a family computer. That way, he’s online and we can monitor him, when that time comes of course. And yes, kids are always going to be kids and be curious, let’s just hope for Christine’s sake that they leave our credit cards out of it! 😉

I don’t think such personal things should be posted on your blog especially when he read what negative things you had to say about him. Today when I took the “time” to ask him about the credit card he immediately told me. The way you ask does make a difference.

Like several others here, I’m finding it really incredible that he did it again after getting caught so easily the last time. He reminds me of my kids, who (as I have often informed them) are just not cut out for a life of crime.

Considering how relatively laid back about all this you are being, though, I am wondering why he feels like he needs to lie and steal about it. Maybe he’s curious and embarrassed? Maybe if you were a Dad instead of a Mom, he could sit around and have instructive sessions over “Behind the Green Door”, satisfying his curiosity about the mechanics of inserting tab A into slot B while simultaneously explaining that what he was seeing had no bearing on the reality of intimacy betewen the sexes …

Just a thought. Hang in there!

Oh my….

I have 2 boys, a 12 and almost 10 yr. I even have to type a password to get some of the darn blogs, because they have used foul words! Of course it’s nothing I would ever say! LOL

I think the wireless keyboard and mouse might be the answer! And spyware.

I was a smart kid too. I zipped my porn pics and movies, then encypted the file and renamed it like 4510sys.tmp . Then put it at the end of a directory tree of 20 folders. And set the property for the folders and file for “Hide”.

Wow this has opened my eyes to be more suspicious of my 11 year old son. I always thought the day may come too but the realization of your experience hits home. Best of luck and thanks for the insight and idea’s. I hope to be more aware now as well. Best of Luck!

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