Dec 24, 2013

If he lives to see Christmas, it will be a miracle

I assume you've all seen a news story or two in which an enterprising young child has decided to purchase lots of music, games or TV shows on iTunes without his or her parents' permission?

Well, you can now count yourselves one degree closer to knowing such a child.


Yesterday morning I heard my email alert dinging repeatedly before 7 a.m., which is unusual. I mean, even you regular commenters aren't usually up and at 'em that early.


Thirteen or so dings later, I finally picked my phone up to see what all the fuss was about. OH SURE, I WANTED TO THINK it was about my Christmas card post. But I know you people better than that.

I started to panic when I saw that I had about 15 iTunes receipts ... and I knew I should have had three -- at most. One for each of the boys' purchases of "gems" for Clash of Clans that they'd asked to make the day before.


Also known as A COMPLETE WASTE OF MONEY, but it was their own money. At first I thought my credit card had been stolen and someone was buying other iTunes stuff with it.


But as I opened up each receipt, I saw that every bit of it was for Clash of Clans gems. I realized that one of the boys must have just kept buying on the strength of my password having been entered that initial time.


That really steamed my clams, because they KNOW that is strictly forbidden, that they are NEVER, EVER to make additional purchases without asking and without handing me the cash first. And then,


I'M SORRY, WHAT?! STOP THE WORLD, IT'S TIME TO GET OFF.

OVER ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS IN ONE PURCHASE?


Look, I'm not proud of it, but there were some distinctly non-Nativity-appropriate words rattling around in my brain at that point.

But it continued.


And continued.


Would you like to know how many separate purchases he made?


And by "he," yes, I'm going to call him out on Christmas Eve, I mean Jake.


Twenty-six. Did you SCREECH that number in your head, Internet? Because you have to SCREECH. IT. for it to have the correct impact. TWINNNTEE!! SEEEKS!!


Email after email I opened. Ask me why sometimes he went for the $9.99 pack and sometimes he opted for two packs at $4.99 apiece. EXCELLENT QUESTION, INTERNET.


He would not part with that information.


And yet it would seem as though there was a method to his madness, because it was a recurring theme during his evening of iTunes Debauchery.


Where were we, you might ask.


We were there! My sister was also there.


Three whole adults, ready and waiting to answer any and all questions.


APPARENTLY HE HAD NO QUESTIONS.


 Certainly not the all-important, "IS IT OKAY IF I BUY MORE GEMS?" question.


And so his spending spree spanned I-don't-know-how-many hours. For all we know, he was shelling out our money left and right while we were eating spaghetti with him at the dinner table that night.


Even now, I'm afraid more of these dreaded receipts are going to come trickling -- or pouring -- in.


I mean, I could take one or two at $10.89.


A stern talking-to and a lesson learned.


But the last two that came in were biggies.



They gave him a grand total of $615.52.

WHAT THE WHAT?

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