December 12, 2004
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I was wrong this time.
We had enough in the door prizes to go around once to everyone there. Not as many showed up as we thought were going to. The Commander decided to give a whole bag full of football Beanie Baby bears to a young boy instead of giving each out (it would have taken a long time, since there were about 20 or more in the bag). Last year we also had some of these. I got a John Elway Beanie then.
I had to take my son to Keaau High School early morning to take the ACT test for college (although he's talking about taking a year off before starting college... more on that later). The testing finished about 11:30 so when he called, I excused myself from the meeting to go get him & bring him. He was pissed, thinking I'd just drop him off in town to skateboard. I made him come to the party, since I had already paid for his lunch. I don't get many chances to show him off, & always have to make him come. So we both got tickets for the door prizes.
Out of the 2 tickets, we ended up with 3 prizes, including $50 cash (this was the main thing I was hoping for, since we have had a very tight summer with my son running up excessive phone bills, both on the cell phone & the house phone through text messaging & long-distance calls to his girlfriend in Colorado when her cell phone got taken away by her mom for the same problem (ran over the shared plan minutes & too many text messages). They think 10ยข each, but don't realize just how many they use. Cell phone companies make a killing off kids! My son took the cash. More on that later.
The Adjutant's son was also there, with his girlfriend. From my earlier talk with the Adjutant, her son's girlfriend mirrors my son's girlfriend in Colorado. Both are Mormons. Both have definite goals for after graduation from high school. Penny's son also has his goals/priorities set for college, unlike my son's wishy-washy ones.
I've fought with my son about the importance of a college education. He seems to think that he can take a year off after high school, maybe working & doing his skateboarding. He's done searches on the Internet about housing, asking me if $650/mo was a good price for an apartment. What he doesn't get is that those prices don't include utilities & how much that would take of any income he might get from a job, since it's very difficult to get a decent-paying job with no experience & only a high school diploma. At that price, earning minimum wage (which hasn't been increased in over 10 years!), he'd have virtually nothing left to eat on, much less to buy his equipment. By the time he pays for rent, electricity, gas (heating), phone (including his cell phone), cable, Internet access & transportation, he'll have spent around $1,000. At minimum wage, even at fulltime, that would put him in the hole about $100 & he hasn't bought any food yet! And a good part of his income will be taken away in taxes & co-pay for insurance! Minimum wage only garners about $910/month.
I've tried to get him to help with a video production at his high school that's still looking for help. He just doesn't get how this will help him build a name for himself, He only sees that it would require time away from his yakking on the phone or skateboarding or playing games. I've even learned that one of my DAV chapter's members is directly involved with this production & has a video studio right here in Pahoa! I'm positive if he sees what my son already has put together with his friends (they made a skateboarding video, which he's actually recorded to DVD!), Del would be very impressed with his videography talents & help nurture his skills.
I've been harping at him for nearly 3 years about getting a job. He refuses to work with food, so the only other things out there are jobs who don't hire minors. Wal-Mart here doesn't hire under 18. Nor does the new Home Depot, scheduled to open this month. He turns 18 next month, so he missed the initial hiring. He sneers whenever I mention anything like McDonald's, local grocers, Pizza Hut, or anything like them. He just doesn't get that as a male, with good work ethic, these places advance them quickly, to positions that earn double minimum wage. Incidentally, Hawaii has their own minimum wage... $1 more than Federal.. These places also work around kids' schedules with school & extracurricular activities.
My son has also had the opportunity to get into a program called "Running Start" for college. He can be taking core required classes right now! We had him all set up to go for this Fall semester, then he tells me he can't because his GPA is too low & he hasn't taken the SATs or ACTs. Shoot... some of his friends have been doing this for 2 years (Junior & Senior)! I've also talked to him about Federal PELL Grants. He would need to apply right away when the applications become available (next month) just to be able to attend next Fall. They run out of money fast! Also, from what I learned when I went to college, the best thing to do is to start college in the summer. It gives a head's up on the semester hours required to retain the grant & also gives a person an easy introduction into college life. Even though the classes meet more frequently & the schedule is more intense, there are 2 summer semesters with which a person can take up to 6 semester hours each, which count toward the minimum of 12 hours for each of the normal semesters as a fulltime student. It's extremely difficult to manage 12 SHs, work & have any kind of life while maintaining decent grades. Although I didn't work fulltime (I had a newspaper motor route at one point & worked for the campus newspaper at another), I did have a kid to raise while I finished my 4-year degree. If I had read everything I was supposed to, I'd have been doing almost nothing else outside of class & writing term papers (I'm a slow reader)! My course load during the long semesters was only 9 hours, because I started in the summer, taking classes during both sessions & continued for each summer instead of 'taking a break.' That break is a waste of time, as far as I was concerned.
As for my kid snatching the $50 prize I won... He decided that it was his ticket that won it. Not only that, for this month's bills, I used $50 he still owed me because of some online expenses that got charged to his debit account, which would have caused my payment to the phone company on money he still owed to cause his account to overdraw. I transferred money from mine to cover it. These were things he subscribed to that were set up to automatically debit when they expired & he's done very little to get them to stop. I hate stuff set up like this! McAfee AV program was one of these! I had an issue with one similar to this with BuzMe.com, for my dialup voicemail service. They ignored my initial email asking how to discontinue the service when my subscription ran out & debited my checking account. I flew a nasty email back to them that the charge was not authorized & unless they credited my account back, I was going to pursue their actions. They had no means of canceling on their site, nor did they have a toll-free phone number to contact. Also, their phone number listed with the phone company was the one for people to use to set up the Internet answering machine, not to cancel it. The other services my son got hit with auto debiting were IGN.com & GameSpy.com.
I don't know if it's intentional, but he can't seem to remember our conversation regarding this $50 correctly. He whined about not having spending money for his trip to Colorado over the Winter break, so I told him I'd either transfer $50 back into his account to cover him buying the gift for his girlfriend, or pay for the gift, but that meant he was back to owing me $50. He seems to think now that I was forgiving his debt to me. Uh uh! No way! He's got to get it into his head now that he needs to learn how to manage his money, including not getting into situations where he gets scammed, which is what I consider Internet services who auto-debit. I also don't set up any of my bills to automatically pay out of my checking account. That gets very dangerous financially! I told him that his taking that $50 & also paying for the game for his girlfriend & him not paying me back means the gift isn't coming from him, but me! He thinks he only owes me the original $50. There went my prize!
He has to repay his girlfriend's mom half of his airline ticket to Colorado ($400). He has told her he'll pay $200 next month & $100 each for the next 2 months. This leaves little to pay for his cell phone, his 'normal' spending habits, or to repay me. Kids nowadays! I never had it as good as he does, even though we've lived in poverty nearly his entire life! I wish he'd learn how to be frugal, instead of having to buy branded (skateboarding) clothes, etc. It isn't that I haven't been teaching him, but he just doesn't get how much of a senseless waste it is. If a person can actually afford the pricey stuff, more power to them! We just can't. A nice home is more important to me & is something we don't have yet. Here's a link to what I'd like to build, once I can afford it: http://multi-facettedhomes.com/2-story.htm
Someday...
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