I had the joy of accompanying The Teenager into town today.
Sadly for him, his savings are held in his kids account at the building society and he needed my signature to clear it out in order to buy a MacBook.
The woman behind the counter was somewhat startled to see his fun savings book with a grinning little red dragon on the cover.
‘Erm, ok. Are you off to Uni then? You do know you can change your account?’
‘Gah. I turned 16 a couple of weeks ago.’
‘Ah. Wow. What do you feed him then, mum?’
‘Just porridge.’
Money extracted and with The Teenager slouched next to me, we headed for the Apple store where we were accosted by an eager sales assistant as soon as we stepped inside.
‘Hello young man’, he said, looking up at The Teenager. ‘Off to Uni?’
‘Gah.’
‘Well that’s a shame. If you had a student card you could have had 15% off your computer, insurance cover down from £199 to £48 and a free pair of Beats headphones, retail price £165. Aren’t you tall? What do you feed him?’
‘Just porridge.’
A dramatic pause. Amazingly, something in my brain clicked. I fumbled in my wallet for my student ID from the Master’s course. And I am now the best mum ever, having just saved The Teenager almost £500. He quickly facebooked and tweeted his friends the news while I dealt with the paperwork.
Everything bagged, we left the store, with The Teenager holding his bags with utmost reverence and care. He would stop every now and again just to look at them, stroking the Apple logo with a dreamy, faraway look in his eyes.
Back home, we chatted about his A Levels. He has an induction day tomorrow and I trotted out the usual parent stuff:
‘You’ve got to hit the ground running with your studies. Make mind-maps as you go along.’
‘Yeah.’
‘You’ve chosen to continue your education. A big step. Drink lots of water, keep your brain hydrated. Oh, and don’t forget your pen tomorrow.’
‘Pen, lol. So old-fashioned.’
A bit later, I got a text from The Teenager.
‘School was great today. Am in love.’
Oh. This is a new one. I told him to invite her over for coffee so we could have a little chat.
‘D’ur, Mumzie (his new way of addressing me) I’m in love with my Mac. Lolz.’
Damn straight he should be in love with his Mac! I love the new Mac smell! Lol no my macs old now!! BUT good on him! He’s joining the Mac army! ;-p 😀
What did he buy then, and I hope he used his student discount too!! 😀
Yup, he’s smitten! Not sure which model it is (I’m not so cool, lol).
And he used my student discount 🙂 Mum’s are good for some things!
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Looked at the specs and price of a mac, what I have is still better lol so not going to get one. uni is mac obsessed tho :/ wait until he does actually fall in love with a person 😉 probably forget about the mac, well maybe not if the person is techy or a gamer :p
He’s trying to get me to buy one too. No chance! Quite happy with my trusty old laptop.
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if there is nothing wrong with yours now, no point really. but if it ever does start to have problems, as shiny as macs are, look into other computers to so you get the best for you pound :)macs are used a lot in schools, mostly because of bundle deals when ordering, also techies tend to be apple nerds 😉 (nothing wrong with a mac, just hard for me to justify the price of one)
I agree. I do like my little old laptop, running a rusty form of Word 🙂
X
It’s a new, exciting time! My son has also just finished gcses and is now in college ( no uniform, no lessons on a Friday) and is in heaven with it all! And already we are having the ” how late can I stay out now ” conversation. He’s definitely ready for the next steps but I can’t say I am!
They feel so grown up! His school is non-uniform in sixth form, so much angst and clothes shopping but he’s loving it!
And yup, it’s now parties and get togethers and me staying awake listening for the key in the door 🙁
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