All three of my girls are beautiful, humorous, intelligent young women.
At age six, Delana, who is in 1st grade, is on the 5th grade list of what are called Fry words; the most used words in reading and writing. She also excels in math and cracking every one up!
Brooke, who is 13, is pretty smart too; does well in all subjects and seems to thoroughly enjoy socializing with her friends school. She’s pretty cocky and quite bullheaded (not sure where that comes from).
Alexis, who is 16, hates school, me, her Mom, her sisters, girls, boys, work is a pretty typical teenager. She’s a bright kid with a bright future somewhere in the world of digital design. She’s also pretty bullheaded (again… not sure why, must be from Mom or somethin’).
This particular complaint is about the older two and a subject that the three of us go ’round and ’round about.
The Remote.
Earlier this evening I had to run Alexis to rugby practice. We’re out the door maybe 3 minutes and Brooke calls..
ME: Hi Brooke!
BROOKE: Where’s the remote?
ME: I dunno. I’m not there. Look for it.
BROOKE: I looked everywhere.
ME: I’ll find it as soon as I get home.
BROOKE: [prolly mumbling expletives] OK, but I looked everywhere.
Brooke always has to get the last word in…
ME: See you in a few minutes.
Oh wait… I have to get the last word in. Brooke hangs up.
So I get home and find the remote, under the couch, within 37 seconds.
This isn’t even the issue I’m getting at. I’m just as guilty here. I’ll spend 17 minutes looking for the remote and not even bother walking 10 feet and MANUALLY turning on the devices.
The real issue is when the remote hasn’t been knocked on the floor by the god damn cat and shoved under the couch isn’t missing.
See, after I added my surround sound system, I had to go buy a fancy remote to make life easier so my lazy ass one can push one button and turn everything on. The DirecTV remote was supposed to be a universal remote, but it didn’t properly operate the surround sound.
I picked up a Logitech programmable remote at Best Buy, brought the thing home, hooked it up to my computer and programmed all my devices into it.
I was all fired up to show the girls how this thing works! So I sat ’em down:
Wanna watch TV? Press the “Watch TV” button. BOOM, everything turns on! Wanna play PlayStation? Press the “Play PlayStation” button and it changes all the settings! Wanna turn everything off? Press the “All off” button.
Seems simple, right? Nope!
When Alexis is done, she’ll manually turn off all the devices. The remote doesn’t know this. When someone tries to turn everything back on, the remote won’t work because it thinks everything is already on! Then ya have to go through a 2-3 minute help process to reset the remote.
I’m pretty sure Brooke does the same thing, though she always denies it! I just know damn near every time I pick up the remote, it’s all jacked up!
So I’ll sit them both down to give ’em a refresher course on how to use a remote and they both roll their eyes and say they know how to use it.
This has been going on for 6 months now. I’d just get rid of the damn thing altogether, but then there wouldn’t be a way for me to turn shit on and off!
We they also have a problem with PlayStation controllers. They don’t seem to understand that if they don’t put the controllers on the charger when they’re done, the things won’t charge!
My kids are so awesome!
For Shiggles 