Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Nobody's Cookie

I had the day from hell Monday.

First and foremost, I got the call that I did not make the praise team at church. Chris did - I did not.

Now... I suppose I am to think that this is a God thing. God has a plan, the Church has a plan, and I just don't fit into the plan right now. Maybe later? But not now. But... I FEEL like a failure. An utter failure. I haven't really failed anything like this in a very long time. I failed my audition with Toast of Tampa when I first auditioned back in 1994 or something like that - but it was technically a 'pre-audition'. I never failed another, and made sure I was fully prepared for every song I sang after that. I don't say that to brag, because it doesn't have anything to do with your voice really, it has to do with your preparation and commitment.

Course, right there might be the problem. Commitment. Maybe my emailing them telling them how unsure I was about the commitment was a factor in their decision. But I keep telling myself I must be a terrible singer. One of those that audition for American Idol that everyone laughs at. Sigh....

I realize that some of you might tell me that I need to realize that I'm singing to praise the Lord. And I will continue to do so, in the choir. Singing was my only way of 'giving' to the church really. And I've failed at it. I'm really trying to not get down on myself too bad. Trying to tell myself I'm not THAT bad of a singer. But the more I keep talking to myself, the worse off I keep feeling.

Lucky for me, lots of other things came about on Monday to keep my day occupied.....

I received my AT&T cell phone bill for the month. Go ahead.... GUESS.... Guess what the bill was for the month.

I'll wait.....

try to guess...

........................

Okay, it was ----

$2,685.76

for the month of April.

Two Thousand
Six Hundred
Eighty Five Dollars
And Seventy Six Cents.

HOLY CRAP

This included 6,771 minutes, 2,084 of which were for just Kayla. Kayte came in a close second with 1,733 minutes. The most amazing thing though was that Kayla sent 10,064 text messages in April. TEN THOUSAND SIXTY FOUR.

Last week, after my 'talk' with Kayla when she had the 500 messages in 2 hours 23 minutes - while in school - I finally got the nerve to look at the bill Monday morning to see what damage has been done thus far. It had been one week into the plan that started 4/21/08 - last Monday. So far Kayla has texted 3,500 times - but that figure is not counting anything on Monday, so it's really more than that. I see the talk didn't really work. Sigh...

Needless to say, I saw this bill -- and my heart stopped. My blood pressure, which is already a little high to begin with, went through the roof. I could feel my brain pushing through the top of my head. Literally.

I call AT&T and tell them they have made SOME kind of mistake. We pay a lot for 5 cell phones, but we do so because we want to make sure we don't go over in minutes (again) and so that the kids can have unlimited text. No surprises on our phone bills. Additionally, Chris, Kayla and myself have data packages - so it's costly, but it's BUDGETED. However, I did not set aside nor plan for anything resembling $2,685.76. That's more like what I pay in a YEAR for all 5 phones.

Sure enough, AT&T made a mistake.

I had called a week or two ago and upped my minutes, afraid we were gong to go over. When she increased the minutes, she accidentally dropped off the 'all you can text' family plan. OOPS

Well, because we were talking about THOUSANDS of dollars here, it needed supervisors approval. So, I had to hold for a supervisor. In speaking with a supervisor, she explained that they would have to assign a dedicated person to sit down for a couple of days and work on my account. They would have to manually go over each and every charge, call and text message. Because there were SO MANY, it was going to take a a bit of time, and a dedicated employee.

Okay. Well, at least they are going to FIX the problem.

We've also been struggling with Justin. He is improving in school. His grades are WAY improving, I'm happy to say. The medication he is on is working beautifully there. However, he and I are struggling with moral issues and I just can't get him to listen to me.

The other day I caught him with MORE raunchy lyrics on his myspace page. I was LIVID. I have told him over and over and over again NOT to put songs up - in particular by this one guy named "Project Pat". There is NOTHING Project Pat sings about that is any good. Google him if you want to see for yourself, Project Pat Lyrics and just pick one.

There was one song in particular that Justin and I went around and around and around about. Justin swore that it wasn't 'bad'. But, the song talked about buying pot, smoking it, doing his girlfriend in the back seat of a car. I mean.... COME ON. Really??? We need to talk about the reasons WHY it's not a good song? Sure he ALSO talked about how he liked this girl. But it's far from a good wholesome song. He seriously thought this wasn't a bad song? We fought about this. Finally I ended up yelling at him and telling him to take the damn song OFF his myspace or else I was going to shut down his myspace for good. End of debate.

But it was frustrating to me that I couldn't get him to SEE that it was a bad song. And we've been through this SO MANY TIMES. I've told him SO MANY TIMES not to put the bad songs on his myspace. Yet he keeps doing it.

I'm losing my cool over it. He shows a complete lack of respect and disregard for my authority.

Additionally, I found an email thread while I was on his myspace for this one kid - a boy whom Justin has been in trouble with recently. This boy and Justin - for very good reason - are no longer allowed to hang out together. They still see each other at school, but I don't allow Justin to go over his house. There are a few reasons for this, a couple of reasons I can mention are that Justin used to smoke Cigars when he hung out with this guy and that the two of them have been mischievous when together. So, the guy writes Justin. He is talking about some party he went to and says that the party wasn't any good. He explains it wasn't good because there was a dad there and because the dad was there "we were not allowed to drink or smoke, so we all just left." Yeah, great kid, huh?

Later in the email thread, the boy tells Justin to LIE to me - tell me that he's going to the park, and then come over to his HOUSE. Justin explains that he can't because his mom is over. (It was on Sunday). I wonder if he would have if it were not a Sunday? So, I email this kid back and tell him that Justin is SO not allowed to see him and how DARE he tell him to LIE to me. I tell him that he shouldn't go to parties to drink and smoke, and that Justin wasn't allowed to hang out with kids who drank and smoked. The kid wrote me back and told me he didn't go to the party to drink and smoke. Yet, clearly... in his email - plain as day - he stated they left because they were not allowed to. Obviously I didn't write the kid back... I'm not going to argue with some kid - he's just a kid.

Justin and I talked about the email. We discussed peer pressure. He didn't even know what peer pressure was. Yet, Justin now has smoked weed and states that he rather enjoys it. He states that he enjoys some kinds of smoking. He likes cigars - black and tans. He doesn't like drinking, but only because he doesn't like beer. Which tells me that his 'peers' could easily get him to try other things that he might like better and he could easily be influenced into trying harder liquor. He strongly felt this guy was a good kid. I strongly feel otherwise. After talking with Justin about him for a while though, I asked him... if you really feel he's a good guy, and you know that smoking and drinking is bad - especially for him because he's a big baseball guy up for multiple scholarships -- why haven't YOU encouraged HIM to NOT do those things? Why haven't YOU said... "Drew, I don't want to smoke, and I don't think you should either. It's just not cool man." Maybe, just maybe you could set him straight... put him on the right path. You could be the one friend he has that could show him the way. It certainly couldn't HURT him and it might just save his life some day, if not help him with his college chances. This never once occurred to Justin. But, I don't know that Justin is strong enough to do this. He is terribly weak when it comes to peer pressure.

Anyways.....Monday night we go to bible study. Heavy on my heart are the kids. How they just don't listen to me. Their complete and utter lack of respect for Chris and myself.

We come home from bible study - sit down on the sofa - the new sofa, less than 2 weeks old. And find a round oil stain on the arm. One of these kids took a fresh baked COOKIE and placed it directly ON the brand freaking new sofa. No plate. No napkin. No nothing. Just sat it there and apparently, from the deepness of the stain, left it there for a while.

Chris went nuts yelling at the kids. I went to work on the stain taking every cleaner I had in the house to it. From heavy duty cleaners to woolite -- nothing worked. It's still there.

Chris got all the kids up out of bed and lined them up in the hallway. He let them have it, telling them that he was sick and tired of the constant disobedience. Sick and tired of them living like they could care less about their surroundings. Living like they have maids that clean up after them. Tired of the constant disrespect shown to the two of us, and it was going to end TONIGHT. The cookie was the cookie that broke our backs. We had ONE nice thing since these kids moved in... and in less than two weeks, they took it away from us. We were fed up.

Kayla... we gave examples of how she takes care of only what she cares about. She takes great care of her phone and her shoes. But her room is a DISASTER. Her carpet is NASTY because she puts GOBS of hair gel in her hair and then PURPOSELY flings her hair back and forth to 'shake out' the excess gel... across the room onto the carpet and the furniture. OUR carpet and furniture. What she does in the bathroom is NASTY - the hair and conditioner... it's EVERYWHERE - she just doesn't care. When I cleaned the bathroom last time I was having dry heaves as I cleaned it was so nasty.

Jonathan - his room is horrible. He just drops his clothes wherever he wants, not caring that nothing makes it into the laundry hamper. Clean clothes, dirty clothes, doesn't matter. Hangers, papers, towels... everything is on the floor.

Justin - we discussed his constant disrespect over the lyrics. Why does he choose to just ignore me? Just do what I tell him to do. He's not going to win this battle. I tell him not to do something, just DO IT. And if I tell him he can't hang out with Drew, just flippin DON'T DO IT. End of story. Don't sneak out. Don't lie. Don't smoke. Don't drink. And don't give into peer pressure.

Then he looks over at Kayte. Kayte and I have gone around and around lately. Kayte always thinks nothing applies to her. And you are always flying under the radar, but it's going to stop. Kayte said she didn't do anything wrong. Kayte always says she doesn't do anything wrong. Chris points out that she knows about EVERYTHING that goes on, and she chooses to do nothing and to tell nobody -- which is wrong in and of itself.

He tells them all that is stops TONIGHT.

Although.... NOBODY fessed up to putting the cookie on the sofa. That 'Nobody' kid again must have done it. I'm sick and tired of all the kids saying nobody did it. All the kids said "the cookies were gross, so I didn't eat any". Well, guess what? They are all gone. Someone ate them.

Liars. I hate it. Hate it, hate it, hate it. One of them is lying, and I can't tell which. What would be worse is if someone else knew who was lying and they were covering up for them. But I'd rather think that one of them is just living in guilt.

For now, I'm just denying them when they ask to go someplace.
Want to go to the park? No....
Want to go to your friends? No....
Want to have your friend come in? No....

Lord knows it'll be a long while before I make cookies again.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

My mouth is still dropped to the floor, even though I heard all this first hand.

I still am in shock over praise team and disappointed in, what I see, as a wrong choice on their part. Please don't beat yourself up over this. It's their loss of your talent!!

As far as the phone bill, glad it's fixed, but dang that's a lot of text messages...she was impressed with herself when I mentioned it to her...she's proud she's getting her money's worth I guess! LOL

Hang in there, especially this weekend! I'm home on Saturday-we'll have Saturday party night instead of Friday :) I'll only be a phone call away though!

XOXOXOX~