Since we have taken all video games, tablets, etc. away from Michael until he is back in school and doing well, the only exception is playing at Grammy and Papa’s.  My totally-lacking-in-social-skills kid hasn’t been able to hide how much he loves his grandparents since the arrival of the XBOX.  Unfortunately he’s not even as slick as that last sentence—we all know his real affection is for electronics—not humans.

He couldn’t wait to go over to their house this week because he told Papa on the sly to order the newer Transformers game—AND PAPA DID IT!  Who is this man, and where was he when I wanted to demand something?  (Probably standing behind my mother…)

So it arrived this week, and he got to go there today and play because I have actually been doing a lot more design lately.  But the anticipation began earlier in the week and culminated with a phone call last evening.  My dad called me to tell me something and then said that the coveted game had arrived—“Don’t tell Mikey.”  Too late…he’s been waiting all week to hear if it came.  When I hung up, Michael was positively mortified that he wasn’t able to ask Papa a bunch of questions so he could prepare for the initial role of Optimus Prime he would be playing today.

Greg decided to dial their number and call them back for the junky.  Once it was ringing, he gave Mikey the phone.  It was like watching America’s Funniest Videos where the old lady is holding the microphone like a telephone, and it’s all awkward and embarrassing.  Only he wasn’t holding the phone close enough to his head.  My poor, practically deaf father must have had to turn his hearing aid up to 100 to make sense of the conversation.  This wasn’t the worst part, though.  That happened when he was holding the phone, standing next to Greg’s chair, while waiting for Papa to answer, and Grammy answered instead.  The look on Michael’s face was like he smelled something so disgusting that it actually made him angry.  In his repertoire of fabulous phone skills and manners, he said in a horrible, incredulous tone, “IT”S GRAMMY!”  His dad quickly said, “Just ask if you can talk to papa.”  He recovered some minutia of social skills, but not technical skills.  You know…the ones necessary to operate a telephone?  Yeah…that skill where you hold the incoming speaker to your ear and the outgoing speaker to your mouth—then you talk—and—I know it’s surreal and unexpected—but you listen, too.

Oh the things I have to teach…