For as long as I can remember I have tried to explain to my children the definition of a real emergency.  A real emergency doesn’t involve an empty cereal box, anything that has to do with the phrase “I had it first” or bleeding unless it involves a major blood vessel and is spurting with every heartbeat onto my carpet. It doesn’t involve getting an answer on whether or not you can have a sleepover or what is for dinner. (However calling me at work and asking me what is for dinner may lead to the blood spurting emergency when I do arrive at home.)

Now that they are nineteen and fifteen I thought just maybe I could check that off my mom’s to do list. You know the list where you think “Darn, I should teach them how to iron and what the inside of a bank looks like before I send them into the world.”

That was until Tuesday.  I received not one but TWO calls at work.  Each child called me independently.  They did not text.  It was an actual phone call where the phone rings and you talk to the other person.  This alone alarmed me because I don’t think I have received a phone call from either of them in a very long time.  They don’t believe in conversation when they can state their demands in a text and delay the sigh in my voice for a few more hours.

Fearfully, I answered each call only to find out that the credit card on our Netflix account had expired.  This was something that they felt should be rectified immediately.  Never mind the people that were receiving physical therapy this was urgent.  They were going to have to watch live television with commercials and everything!!  Both were a little shocked when I assured them that they could in fact wait until I got home from work to watch a movie.

Oh well, with any luck there’s still time to teach them how to iron.