What's mildly irritating you today?

[Juniper]

I may as well get him a phone -- that is, a $10 pay-as-you-go. It's cheap and doesn't do much, but you can put the existing SIM chip in and it functions just like the other ones on his current plan. You don't have to use the pre-paid service.

I'm paying for the service anyway, and though it's just a month it's very important to me that the kids have phones. Experience has taught me that you just never know when it'll come in handy, even if it's just to find out how much longer they'll be in line for the roller coaster.

AND I don't know if I'll be getting him that new phone in August. He's usually very, very responsible with his stuff -- he's had the phone for almost 2 years (and he's only 11), DS, MP3 player, taken them everywhere, and the only casualties have been styluses (styli?) and earbuds. But I think it's a good opportunity to let him earn it by showing responsibility in other ways, like cleaning up after himself - the boy seems to think that there's a maid following him around everywhere he goes. Oh wait, that's me.

When he does earn it, it'll be nice to have an extra phone (the cheapie) because with a family of 4 cell phone users you never know when one might croak or ....you know, get washed.

I really need to get rid of our regular land-line service. There's no point, nobody ever uses it. The only reason we have it is it's bundled with our ISP and cable. Maybe I can find a better deal.