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.’