The girls are having trouble getting along right now. So what did I, the on-top-of-it mother do? Did I waive my magic wand? Did I send them to separate rooms? Did I insist on more appropriate behavior? (Well�.I at least asked for more appropriate behavior.) No, I did nothing helpful at all. In fact, I likely made it worse tonight because I went out and got one more thing for them to fight over: a cellphone. That�s right, one cellphone. One cellphone between two teenage girls.

Considering Kat�s phone phobia, it could have been worse. It�s not like both girls will really want to talk on the cellphone. Only one of them will want to talk on the cellphone. Yet there still will be a problem. Nevermind talking on the cellphone, they both will want to carry it around. They will want to have the cellphone�and if they don�t want to have the cellphone, they will want to keep the other one from having the cellphone.

The cellphone, of course, is not there cellphone. Mr. Philately and I pay for it so it�s ours (at least until they break it�at which point it is theirs and whoever broke it will have to pay to replace it.) We did not get it for the status symbol. Mostly, we got it because, with the highway construction, the only way for Kat to get to her Saturday Shakespeare class is by driving through a marginal neighborhood and we figure there will be a few other times it will come in handy to give it to Day.

But they will have some trouble remembering that. They will not care why we got it. (They will at least watch their minutes though and will not text message or they will have no phone. This phone is not a toy.) They will just be glad we got one---for the half a minute before the feud begins.

I just hope that I do not end up wishing that thing they were holding was a Taser or some such. I hope I do not have fantasies of a giant switchboard (the old fashioned kind that I ran relief on for one of my teenage jobs) with the ringer switches. I hope I do not I pretend that the fantasy ringer switches supply the electricity to stun them.

To quote Lily Tomlin, �one ringy dingy�.two ringy dingy�---and then zap! Two obnoxious, fighting teenagers out cold.

Now I could sign onto a plan for them each to own a cellphone like that.

Well, a mom can dream, can�t she?

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