I was responding to a thread on Facebook about a kid and her parent’s cell-phone. One of the parents mentioned they copy-cat-ed the protocol for their kids.
Before our kid was old enough for a cell phone she had a walkie-talkie. Rules for the walkie-talkie were:
- Call in every hour.
- (No answer from parents? Come home.)
- Call in before you go inside someones house.
- (No answer from parents? Come home.)
There is no calling from their phone. It happens from the radio.
- (No answer from parents? Come home.)
- Call in before your change the plans you told us about.
- (No answer from parents? Come home.)
- If the parents call you from the radio and we don’t hear a reply we’ll wait .00001 seconds before getting into the truck to find you. If this happens then you and the bike go into the truck and come home.
The above now works with radio being replaced by the boat VHF and bike replaced with dinghy. (If I have to swim to find you I’ma gonna be pissed!)
We also have the cell phone protocol:
- The cell phone is for DAD’s convenience. Not yours.
- If the cell phone does not work for some reason then I’ll just cancel the service, why pay for something that does not work?
- The last 20% of the battery belongs to DAD, not you. 20% is the new zero. (India is REALLY fast at finding a charger/turning off apps at 21%)
- We get your passcode.. (period)
- We can, at any time ‘become you’ on your social media things.
- (note: I only do this when India is there, usually while we are waiting for something and she is not being social with us. I assume the role of her and talk to her friends in the goofiest ways. I end the very confused conversation with a selfie of her and I. The selfie tells everyone that her account was not hacked and that, at any time, it might be her dad you are talking to.
