Just Shoot Me... Again

So I'm sitting at the house this past weekend enjoying a rarity of quiet when the phone rings. It's a collect call. I patiently wait for the automated Operator to tell me who is calling so I can decide whether to accept charges. It is my oldest daughter. Okay, I think, smiling to myself; it's nice for her to check in so I accept the charges. She proceeds to go on this tirade of how her mother and I have concluded that she is making all the wrong decisions and contributing to the delinquency of her younger sister and as far as she is concerned we can just take a flying leap. Along this journey into the teenage twilight zone she throws a few choice words into the conversation for punctuation.

I still haven't spoken. Finally, I recover somewhat from the shock of the call.

"Are you finished?"

"Yes, but I want you to know I'm upset." As if even in the bliss of parental ignorance this tidbit would slip past my mental grasp.

"When are you and mom going to realize I'm nineteen and capable of making my own decisions?"

At this point I'm trying to get the cotton out of my mouth so I can respond with something other than simply, "uh." Unfortunately, the only thought provoking response I can come up with at the moment is "uh."

The next thing I hear is a whoosh of air as my daughter exhales in exasperation followed by the slamming of the phone.

I'm still in shock. I was having a great evening. All my kids were somewhere else and I was preparing for a relaxing evening of writing or Internet surfing, perhaps watch a little television, maybe even play the piano and sing badly. It was going to be great. Suddenly at the height of my confusion but in typical dad fashion it hit me, I paid for that call. Not only had my daughter succeeded in telling me off (for reasons I was clueless) she managed to reverse the charges. I was dumbfounded.

Later I learned that my daughter had been having a conversation with her mom (my ex) earlier in the day. My ex-wife will sometimes take the liberty of using phrases like, "Your father thinks" or "Your dad believes you should." Usually these comments are completely foreign to me and as in this case I learn of them when I get blasted for them. I had not even talked to my ex-wife that particular day. The comments she made to my oldest daughter were because of some houseguests my daughter had that her mom did not approve of.

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