There are some in Princeton who will dispute this.
They will claim it’s an egregious and slimy, relentless lie.
At the very least, they will rant, it is exaggerated and amounts to nothing more than fake news.
Here at The Spotlight, we turn the other cheek when people spout nonsense like that. Especially when the spouters live with me.
So here it is.
The first number is 27.
That’s how many mobile device chargers that have made their way into the DeMeer home under my steam. A couple came with work phones, but most were purchased locally either at The Source or one of the many variety stores that keep them well stocked on their counters, right beside the lottery tickets.
The second number is 0.
That’s how many mobile device chargers that are available to me on any given day.
Phone chargers are the new socks.
You know they must be somewhere in the house, but no one can ever find them and members of the best families will steal and claim them as their own.
Overheard in the DeMeer kitchen.
Mom did you take my phone charger out of my room?
No son. I took MY phone charger out of your room.
That is my phone charger. You can’t go into my room and take it.
(As an aside, does anyone care to place a wager on that one?)
Son, why do think this is your phone charger?
Well, for one thing it was in my room!
For a while it was customary for various spawn to scribble their initials on my phone chargers.
See Mom, it must be mine because it has my name on it.
There isn’t a child or husband in that house who can prove they have EVER bought and paid for their own phone charger.
Even the craftiest of teenager boys has problems looking his mother in the eye while trying to convince her he, of his own account, chose the fluorescent pink phone charger cord at the Chevron.
The missing chargers must all be hiding under beds, or the dog ate them, or they went into the dryer and never came out again.
To be sure, the kids have no better luck than me when searching desperately for a phone charger.
Their cries are piteous.
I NEED your phone charger. He’s cradling the device to his chest and sobbing.
IT’S GOING TO DIE.
As if he’s talking about a newborn and not a second hand iPad.
Mr. DeMeer deliberately hides phone chargers, when he sees their cords snaking out from under the end tables in the living room.
(He hides other things as well. Shampoo if it’s getting low, same for toilet paper. He also regularly hides his comb.)
This puts me in the ridiculous position of having to beg to borrow the phone charger that was mine in the first place.
And he shakes his head with feigned regret. I would give you this phone charger, but you have demonstrated you can’t be trusted with it.
For Mother’s Day some women get perfume, others receive knick knacks or gardening plants.
This Mom doesn’t even want the kids to buy her a new phone charger. But it would be nice if they would all buy one for themselves.