Cell Phones and Teenagers...YIKES!

We finally caved and Sawyer got a cell phone for Christmas. After all (according to him) he was the only kid in middle school who didn't have one. We, as parents, had cramped his social style for long enough. When he turned on his phone on Christmas morning, there was a text from us telling him that he could pick 3 ring tones, and we would buy them for him. He started previewing the ring tones, and this became his latest obsession. He followed us around for the next month, sticking the phone up by our ears, so we could hear the sample ring tones that he thought were cool or funny. It drove us nuts! What drove us even more nuts was when we got his first bill, and there was $80 in extra charges on there from all the ring tones he had previewed! Mark about died...and so did Sawyer :)! In Sawyer's defense, he wasn't trying to be sneaky about it. The lady at the Verizon store told us it was a free service. Other than it being extremely annoying, we didn't care how many he listened to. It ended up not being free...verizon did agree to take 15% of the charges off, since the lady had told us the wrong information. Sawyer doesn't listen to anymore ring tones, so now his phone is not nearly as exciting. THIS is just one of the reasons why teenagers and cell phones just don't mix!