Parents, Trust, and Cell Phones.

Everybody in Texas loves a good snow day. It was January and the weather was getting worse by the hour and the whole school was being sent home early. As we exited they cautioned us on the road and how dangerous the ice was getting. Although I was listening to what they are saying, I didn’t really take it in to consideration. I had driven my boyfriend Nick to school that day and thought it would be okay for him to come back to my house. When we got home the snow had fallen quite heavily and gathered a good couple of inches. We played in the snow for a good forty five minutes and returned back into the house. We sat down on the couch with a bowl of popcorn when he looked down at his phone. He had seven missed calls and three voicemails from his mother. Our stomachs both turned as we looked at one another in complete shock. Apparently she heard about the early release from school and wanted him to come directly home. We listened to the voicemails holding the phone three inches away from our ears. “Nickolas Alexander Klika if you don’t get home right now, you’re grounded for an entire month! No television, computer or cell phone! How dare you not call me when you get out of school early, especially with the weather the way it is!” She rambled on at the top of her lungs a good three minutes, but we got the memo after about ten seconds. I wondered how and why she over reacted to such an extreme degree. She was fuming and we both felt more nervous than ever. Although he may have been wrong by not calling and she had a little bit of reason for being so infuriated, but she took it to an extreme degree, one that I did not feel was necessary.
With my parents gone and Mrs. Klika livid at her son, we both felt no other option but to hop in my car and take him home. My goodness the roads had gotten horrible! I figured I made it to his house so I could easily make it home. I pulled out onto the small two lane highway that ran right through the middle of our town and began driving. Listening to the radio checking out the scenery, you would have thought the road was dry by the way I was driving. Two miles down the road I lost control of my car and began spinning in circles; my nonchalant attitude about driving was coming back to bite me in the butt. I veered to the right and my car began to roll to the right into a steep ditch outside of my new high school. The car rolled three times and on the fourth time around I felt a sudden stop. My shirt was soaked from the tears that streamed down my face. My life literally flashed before my eyes. I looked out the window and I was being held up by a barbed wire fence. That fence saved my life. I made it out safely, but I can’t say the same thing for my car. That experience often makes me wonder about the pressure parents apply to children about their cell phones. They harp on us for our obsession and constant need for our cell phone at our side, yet they just as obsessed about keeping in contact with us. I find it a bit hypocritical. If Nick’s mother had not called him so many times and over reacted about his where-abouts, I would have never been in that situation, and would have never had an accident. Over reaction is common amongst parents now days. Although they are just concerned for the safety of us, kids have been getting along just fine for years without calling their mother or father every hour for a report of where they are and who they are with.