CALL ME.

My house is nothing if not an enormous communication system. It happened little by little but at this point I’m pretty sure that the U.S. government is tracking what goes on in our den.

My son sits at his computer and next to him is a phone on ‘speaker,’ which is running a conference call between him and all his friends playing a particular computer game. It took me a while to figure out what was going on but eventually I realized that when I talk in my house, it’s being broadcast through his phone to no less than five other people’s homes, all of whom have their kids on speaker phone. So in essence, when I stand in the kitchen yelling, “Get your hideous dog out of here, he’s farting into the dishwasher,” that information is being simultaneously transmitted out to families across the city.

But to be fair, their daily household events are also being sent to us. I now realize that if I pay a little attention, I can hear all kinds of intimate things coming from other people’s homes. I know that Sebastian’s mother has a raging yeast infection which is why she has refused to have sex for the last three weeks. I know Zachary’s family is selling their vacation home because his dad lost his job, which according to Zachary’s mom is “Exactly what happens when you pour a half a bottle of scotch into your morning Starbucks you freaking LOSER” and it turns out that Eric’s mom found a very revealing photo of Matthew McConaughey in Eric’s dad’s sock drawer.

When you think about it, all this socializing is kind of good for an only child with a working mom. It’s like he always has friends over. At night, I come home to the sound of kids yelling and talking and phones ringing and texts dinging. It’s warm and fun and a good time is being had by all. “Hi everyone! I’m home.” No response. “I’m home from work you guys!” Nothing. So much communication and yet, no one has any desire to talk to me. “I suppose you’re all desperate to know what kind of day I had.” Sure they are. “Well I’ll tell you. My day was so good that I’m going to go slit my wrists in the shower.”

My son’s computer is also equipped with I.M. which means “Instant Message.” As best as I can tell, the guys use the I.M. function to talk behind each others back while they are on the conference call. Occasionally I’ve noticed that my son also speaks into a headset which it turns out is attached to “X-Box Live” where he is monitoring a game of Halo being played by people all over the country on our 50″ high def television. Oh, and also, about every six seconds, there is the sound of breaking glass. That’s his cell phone ringing, so yet another genius can inquire as to what’s ‘sup at our house. If you do the math, the kid is now communicating with up to twelve people on four different devices at any given time while I continue to fuck up call-waiting.

Last night I finally got my son to bed and went downstairs to lock up. Everything was quiet. The t.v. was turned off, the dogs were asleep. I turned off the lights and glanced over to his computer. The phone was off the hook and the little red light was glowing. I leaned toward the phone slowly…

“Hello?”
“Hi.”
“Who’s this?”
“This is Eric.”
“Aha. Well, Eric, it’s a school night. Aren’t you supposed to be in bed?”
“Aren’t you supposed to be in the shower slitting your wrists?”

I guess someone was paying attention.

Oh! P.S. If you really listen, it turns out Sebastian’s mom does not have any kind of infection at all. She’s just taking a little break.

Rae