More “Some Days You Just Shouldn’t Talk”

 

“I’m off to Lindsay’s now,” Pik says, on her way out the door. Nothing like a sweet summer day, and a friend with a pool.

“Keep your phone with you today, okay?” I tell her. She didn’t respond to any of my texts yesterday, but she was at the lake and I figured they’d spent the day in the water.

“I will, Mom,” she says with the careful deliberation one uses with the mentally disabled. “But my phone doesn’t let me open your texts.”

Okay, now I’m not the most tech-savvy, but even I know this doesn’t make sense.

“What are you talking about?”

“I can see your texts, but my phone doesn’t let me open them.”

“Why not?”

“There’s too many texts, I guess.” It appears she’s inherited her tech-savvy from me.

“Okay, your whatever-box is full. So you need to clear it out then.”

“Yeah. But there’s like, two-thousand of them. I don’t have time.”

“You still have to do it.”

“I will.”

“When?”

“I don’t know!”

“But you’ll answer me if I text you this afternoon?”

“I told you, I can’t!”

“Well then why bother even taking your phone if you can’t use it?”

“I can use it. I just. Can’t. Open. Texts.”

“So you could call me then, if you see a message from me.”

“I guess.”

“Awesome. Do that, then.”

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

In a whoosh of hair and skirt, she flung open the door. “Bye,” she snapped. Then, almost against her will, she added, “love you.”

You have to smile. What else can you do?