The second in a series of stories, the telling of which allows me to type stuff while avoiding responsibilities

First, a little business. Daltonboy, jr., has turned eighteen. One of his favorite things to say is, "I'm an adult." I think it's time to change his name to "daltonman." Or maybe dalton"man." And daltonkid has a new occupation (at least that's what he wanted to tell the IRS on his 1040EZ--I finally convinced him, I think, that an occupation and a job are two different things sometimes, and that regardless of what they call him at his part-time job, he's a student). So now we're going to call him busboy.

So anyway, daltonman came up to me the other day and said, "So. Mom. Have you blogged about my iPod yet?" Two questions came to mind:

1) Why would I blog about someone else's iPod?
2) Why don't you blog about your iPod?

And then I realized that I actually do have a story to tell about someone else's iPod, and since daltonman doesn't have a blog, and since I'm still trying to avoid writing about armless babies, I may as well tell it.

Here's what happened: daltonman saved up some money last summer and bought himself an iPod. It was/is his most prized possession. Shortly after the purchase, the screen broke. Daltonman was devastated. Repair of an iPod screen costs about $100--prohibitive. After we did the research, he took it pretty well, and has been using the thing with no screen.

Before daltonman turned eighteen, daltonboy and I had some conversations about what to do for his birthday. We wanted to do something special for the new adult in the house, but our usual birthday budget is fairly low. We decided that what would really please him would be to repair the iPod for him. So I went online again, and started to look for a place that would do it fast, reliably, and cheap. For the birthday, we gave daltonman a little card saying that we would fix the thing. He liked that idea very much. Imagine my surprise and delight when I found, almost immediately, on the World Wide Web, an article dated Feb. 2006 that talked about how Apple is now repairing screens on the iPod Nano for free, since many of them were faulty when the thing first came out last year! I sent the thing in, and we got a brand new one back a couple of days later. Free iPod!! Free birthday!!

Then I felt guilty, because all I really did was make a phone call and go to the post office. We told daltonman that we would get him another gift--this time within our regular budget, but he could tell us what he wanted. He said his original headphones were broken, and that the cheap replacements he bought were substandard, and he'd really like a new set of headphones. So we agreed that he would do the research and let us know what he'd like.

A couple of days later, we were returning from our vacation, stopped at the Cheese Factory in Beaver, and as we left the parking lot, daltonboy saw something lying in the road. He stopped to see what it was. It was a pair of working iPod ear buds!

Does anyone else see signs and wonders in these events? I took it as a definite sign that we were not supposed to spend any money whatsoever on daltonman for his birthday. And I laughed and laughed in a slightly evil way. More in the pot for MY birthday!! Then we decided to be fair, and got him a gift anyway. And he likes it, and he has all this other new stuff besides. Now I can't wait for my big day. With the kind of luck we've been having, I should be getting a big ol' pile of awesome yard sale/found on the street/D.I. treasures here in a couple of weeks.