Before kids texted each other incessantly on their smart phones, before Facebook, and Twitter, kids IM’d each other on the computer. And when Samantha was in high school, no one had lap tops yet; so when she needed to IM her friends, she had to do it from the computer in my family room.
Of my 5 senses, I was blessed with two of superior worth: the first is my sense of smell, and the other is my acute vision. Having exceptional nasal acuity aided me when I needed to use my nose as breathalyzer, and my keen vision allowed me to spy on my kids (mostly Samantha) when they were IM-ing on the computer. And just so we are clear, I believe spying on your kids is a subversive way to keep your children safe—especially when they are teenagers.
This was my technique: I would sit on the couch, near the computer, but not so near the computer to look obvious. Then I would face the television in a direct line while straining my eyes sideways to look at the computer screen. I would make a point of making random generic comments about what was transpiring on the television so as not to arouse suspicion. Occasionally, Samantha would get suspicious and she would say Are you reading my IMs? And then I would say Are you serious? Do you honestly think I could read what you write from here? And because she herself was a little bit nearsighted and because she was also unaware of my six million dollar man bionic eyesight, she was satisfied with my lie. (Briana was a bit smarter, she would move the IM window so I had to look through her body—which still was not a problem: I was Superman with x-ray vision)
Consequently I knew way too much about way too much. And I knew who she was talking to online because the kids were not very imaginative with their screen names. It did not take a rocket scientist to figure out who Jax was. So I knew who was hooking up with whom. I knew where the party was, and who was bringing the “refreshments”. I knew if someone cut school and who didn’t write their papers on time. If they wrote it on an AOL IM, and I happened to be sitting on the couch at the time they wrote it, I had access to the information.
The problem was I was like the British intelligence during World War II. The British had broken the German secret code early in 1942. In fact they knew in advance when Hitler was invading Poland but they were powerless to stop it. If the British had intervened and prevented the invasion, the Germans would have been tipped off, and thus altered their “enigma machine.” So the British made the difficult choice of allowing lives to be sacrificed, just so they could keep learning about the Nazi’s war plans.
And that was my predicament too. I had amassed all this secret intelligence about the lives of teenagers but I couldn’t do much about it without letting on that I was in my own version of the CIA. Sometimes I would say someone told me that blah blah blah…and is it true? and Samantha might take the bait—but not always. Sometimes she would get suspicious about my inquiries and ask how do you know that? And I would lie and blame it on a Mom I knew she hated. It was worse when I would find things out about my friend’s kids and then had to make the difficult decision to keep my mouth shut-- especially when the information my friends had about their own kids was miles from the truth.
It is estimated that by the British breaking the German code the war was shortened by almost two years. I wasn’t that lucky. I assure you, the only thing shortened by two years as a result of me breaking the teenage code was my haircoloring appointment—I turned gray a full two years sooner than I should have because of reading those IMs. They say knowledge is power, but sometimes—not so much. Knowledge only rendered me powerless. I was the keeper of information I could not purvey.
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