Opps...

Saturday afternoon we went down to our little beach on the marina/bay and borrowed our neighbor's kayak. I through boy #2 behind my seat and boy #1 in front of me. It was the perfect day for it. Warm weather with cool water. So we, by that I mean I, paddled around for a while. Then I let Max off at a dock and raced him back to the shore. I stayed in the boat a little longer then Max came and tried to get back on. A big kayak wrestling match ensued. That little bugger was neigh impossible to dislodge. We eventually made it back to shore for a break. I sat down in my chair and tried to find my cell phone to call Em. I couldn't find it anywhere. "Max, have you seen my phone?" A startled look comes across his face as he pats his pockets. "I put it in my pocket," says he. "NO YOU DIDN'T," says I crisply. He decided it would be funny to hide it and then forgot as he came back into the water. So the phone is now lying in the Narragansett Bay somewhere.

I tried to stay calm so I could talk to him:

"Do you know how much a new phone costs?"

Sheepishly, "No, how much?"

"A hundred dollars."

"Do we have that much?"

"You will have to use all of your money and then I will have to pay the rest."

"All of my money? But I've been trying to save it."

"I know, I've been trying to save mine too." (sympathetically.)

He bursts into tears and sobs.

Anyway, no phone was recovered and I got a new one at the Verizon store. Through some sort of renewal of contract and new phone credit, it actually didn't cost anything, but I decided I would keep his twelve dollars anyway. I did let him keep the few pounds of change that we hauled in.

I think that the lesson got taught, but I'm not sure.