Tech talks

Rachel announced to Drew the other night, when she was in the tub: "Daddy. We need to talk about something that could change the entire future of our family."

She said, "First, every time when someone in the family needs to talk about something involving technology, we're going to call it 'Technology Talk.'"

So they had their first technology talk in the tub.

She announced her plan how she's going to save up enough money to buy her own cellphone:

"I got $200 for my birthday last year, right?"
Drew said yes.
"And if I get $200 this year, and another $200 next year, then I'll have $600, right?"
Drew said, "Uh...huh."

Then she said, "Then I can take $500 from the bank and use it to buy my own cellphone."

Drew could tell she was very proud of herself for thinking of that on her own.

But then Drew said, "Well, there's a little problem with that." And that's when he explained the monthly bill for phone service, without with the cellphone was useless.

She asked how much it would be, and he said about $50 a month.

She said, "Well, I could give you all my allowance every month and not spend it on anything else."

He said, "Even if I raise your allowance to $3 a week, that would only be $12 to $15 a month. What about the rest?'

She said, "YOU can pay the rest."

Drew said that, "but your allowance comes from my pocket anyway. So really, I'd be giving you money so you could turn right around and give it back to me anyway."

She gave that kind of embarrassed look and acknowledged he was right. And he said he'd a defer a discussion of cellphone into the indefinite future. And he said that assumed that she would even GET any birthday money this year, which she can't count on.