Viva Las Vegas: The Paper Trail

Communications with kids are always interesting. It used to be that we communicated by a letter in the mail, then telephone calls. Nowadays, it's cell phones and texting. Jill says "who emails? That's so outdated." Well, it wasn't, back a couple of years ago when we went to Vegas.

I had told the kids to only call if the house was burning down - an admonition I quickly withdrew after meeting a couple on the way to the casino who told their kids the same thing. I guess they shouldn't have been surprised when their kids called and told them to sit down. They'd truly burned the house down. Oye and vay.

Well, I had also told the kids to email and let me know how things were going. Email helps to keep the parents out of the immediacy of the fights, but still keeps us in touch. Guess I shouldn't have been surprised when I got my daily missives. Below is an unauthorized, abridged version of the discussions:

From Jill, dated 6/12/06:
SUBJECT: WHEN ARE YOU COMING HOME?
I'm pretty sure the subject speaks for itself...

Yeah, you know that star-fish that was hanging in the kitchen? Timmy ate it. I hope you weren't to attached to it...

Hurry up and get home,

Jill.

From Thomas, dated 6/13/06:
SUBJECT: What up
Missed your call today, so I figured I'd just email you.

Day one went fine, had a little bit of a problem breaking a boredom spell in the afternoon, but we just went to the park and hung out, hit a few balls, and played catch for a couple hours. Came back, took Jill to work (she was going to hand her two weeks notice in or something likek that - but I guess she said that whoever she needed to talk to wasn't there), got dinner dinner with Seth, rented a game, came home, watched a couple movies, and now I'm here.

....I've been trying to keep things simple in terms of necessities that we need that you guys usually supplied... I asked Jill to cook dinner (becuase Lord knows Seth and I would probably blow the entire fucking block up), and Seth and I would set, do dishes, etc. But apparently this is too much to ask, and we got into this huge argument about it. I honestly have no idea how this is not far, and she couldn't tell me either. She even called me a sexist, rofl. I guess she thinks she has the pants on right now, and she will just have to disillusion herself. I have the car. :D [Thomas was the only driver in the house at this point. Jill only had a permit.] So I kind of resolved that by telling her she loses either way, since if she's going to be like that about things then Seth and I will just go have a decent dinner elsewhere and leave her to cook for herself, and I kind of won her over with that. I might be coming off as mean, but oh well, just trying to mediate things.

Speaking of the car, it's driving quite fine...but I don't think you probably expected anything different.

I guess they don't realize that I am quite fine with driving just about anywhere they want to go (within the realms of safety and yadda yadda), but they don't want to seem to want to go anywhere fun or out of the ordinary. I'm actually the one trying to think up of something - ANYTHING - to do. Hopefully they'll chill out and become more imaginitive than I...but if not, this week is going to be a long one. I am jobbed with paying for everything so far. Oh well, if she hasn't gotten to me yet, I don't think it will throughout the week.

At least there are always hundreds of movies to keep me entertained..until my hard drive gets here. [His computer had ::gasp:: melted down right before we left.]

This e-mail is probably ridiculous incoherent since I'm rather tired, but oh well.

Win million in Vegas and such,

tsutter

From Jill, dated 6/14/06.
No Subject.
Mom,

please call your eldest son, Thomas, and tell him to put the gosh darn toilet seat down when he's done using the restroom. He absolutle refuses no matter how hard I try. When I asked him to put the toilet seat down he told me I was being lazy and that I should put it down. He also called me a control freak (just because I asked him to put the toilet seat down). Every time I ask him to do ONE thing he spazzes out and tells me to do it (Which is why the house is a mess right now).

Help me? Come home? Tell daddy I miss him and I hope he feels better.

Jill.

From Thomas, dated ten minutes later. He is obviously unaware of his sister's edict:
SUBJECT: re: What up
Will do.

Also, Seths RAM and my hard drive came today, but..

the hard drive is SATA. I needed ATA133. :/

I ordered another one, but I had to sacrifice a ton of stuff I would have wanted (though it was also cheaper, obviously), but beggars can't be choosers. I got the first one refunded, and I'm gonna try and ship it back today..just need access to a printer. So I'll probably head over to your double and use the one there and check out your mail situation.

[Translation: his computer should be repaired, but they sent something incompatible with what he has, so he has to return it.]

From Thomas, a mere twenty minutes later. I must've been around to respond to Jill's email.
SUBJECT: Re: What up
toilet seat more like lol get outta here i already destroyed her with MASSIVE LOGIC in that debate

[At which point, I noted that he had lost all punctuation and capitalization skills, and reminded him that men have been trying logic on the toilet seat issue for decades, and they will never win. Because they are wrong. And to just put the seat down, and we will have peace in the world, because putting the seat down should not be underestimated, in its importance to the universe. But I digress.]

Thomas' last proclamation, three days later. I guess he'd stopped caring, but he sure wasn't happy later that day, when he found out we'd gotten bumped from our flight and were spending the night in Phoenix, arriving home a day later than originally planned. I don't remember what I had sent him, but I think it was some version of the above note:
SUBJECT: re: What up
forget that

PS Jill's mega ultra super emo today holy crap

next time you guys do this you are taking her or I am going with you

I can't stand this. oh my god I snapped at her today 8)

The only thing we heard from Seth the entire time we were gone was this:
1. Get off plane.
2. Call home to tell kids we have arrived.
3. Seth answers.
4. "Hi Seth, we're here."
5. "Oh, I guess that means your plane didn't crash? Cool. Want to talk to Thomas or Jill?"

And that was it. Viva Las Vegas: The Paper Trail. And we haven't gone away without them since, other than a quick trip to Michigan last fall, when no one called or emailed. I guess they just don't care anymore, since two of them can drive now. Distance makes the heart grow fonder, and all that. Click on the image to buy the cool paper dress, available on ebay from Hide N Seek Treasures.