Thanks for the Heart Attack, Technology!

this, plus 3 missed calls.

Normally, I really like technology. Texting, the internet, iStuff.  I really do. But now and then, I want to murder technology. And not in a clean, Dexter way.  It needs to get messy.  The kind of crime scene cops drink to forget.  Take last night...

It's 6:30 pm.  I've worked all day, and am now sitting in my Advertising class.  We're waiting to start.  Suddenly, I get a text.  "PLEASE CALL."  It's from WIFE.  WIFE never texts.  It bothers me that we have this cool way of "talking", and she never uses it.  But now she's using it, and in ALL CAPS. This is not good.

In an instant, my brain is Usain Bolt.  It's one of the kids, I think.  It has to be. Something has gone terribly wrong with one of the kids. I'm certain. The only questions now are "what, which one, and how bad is it?" I know I should be calm and that it's probably no big deal.  But when you've met tragedy once, it's easy to imagine he's still out there, waiting to meet you again.  

If it's not the kids, I think, it's my parents.  Frantically waiting for WIFE to answer my calls, I imagine her picking up with "It's about your dad."  Both my folks stay in great health, but he travels a lot, so I worry.  I'm also a mama's boy, which means I naturally assume it'll be pops who goes first. 

I'm calling and calling.  Three calls to WIFE and no answer. I'm texting too, and now, in true WIFE fashion, she's not responding.  Now?!  Now you don't reply to my frantic texts?  

Finally, with me just shy of "hot mess", she picks up. "What is going on?", I whisper-scream into the phone. "Nothing's wrong," she says to me.  And she means it.  I can tell.  She sounds happy, and I hear both kids laughing in the background.  Totally cool and content, she tosses out, "Why would you think something is wrong?" YOU USED ALL CAPS, DAMNIT! HOW COULD I THINK OTHERWISE?!  

Only she hadn't. In fact, she didn't even text me. There was no emergency.  No drama. Nothing. There was, however, an incredibly handsome, very curious rascal of a son, who likes to chew on his mother's phone.  And while chewing, he gummed one special button that apparently fires off pre-written texts, like PLEASE CALL...in ALL CAPS.

Next Question: how young is too young to stick a kid in time-out?