Just desserts

Son #2 ("Moses") and I had a running dialog today, abbreviated below:

MOM: I'll pick you up when school gets out at 1:15.
MOSES: OK. No wait. We have practice. Pick me up at 3.
MOM: OK. 3 it is.

(Phone call at 11)
MOSES: We don't have practice.
MOM: Allright. I'll be there at 1:15.

(Phone call at 1)
MOSES: Can I go to eat at Zaxby's with Herbie? You can pick me up at Zaxby's at 3.
MOM: OK, 3 at Zaxby's.

(Phone call at 2:20)
MOSES: Can you pick me up now?
MOM: I can be there in 15 minutes.
MOSES: No, wait. Nevermind. Can you pick me up at Catina's house instead?
MOM: OK, I'll pick you up at Catina's house in 20 minutes, OK?
MOSES: Yeah, OK.

(Phone call at 2:40)
MOSES: Just pick me up at the tennis center instead.
MOM: Well, I'm turning into Catina's street right now, but I'll turn around and be at the tennis center in a sec.
MOSES: OK.

I pull up to the tennis center at 2:42. No Moses. Drive around once. No Moses. I am supposed to pick up another son (who has only made ONE change in original plans today) at 2:45. I try Moses' cell phone...it is dead. I try the number he called me on. There is no answer. I leave to go pick up other son.

(Phone call at 2:48)
MOSES: Did you try to call me? Where are you?
MOM: (Unleashing a tirade that has been longsufferingly bottled up for obviously quite awhile): Yes I tried to call you. I was at the tennis center, where were you? I wonder if you realize you are not the complete center of the entire universe, and that there are other things I have to do besides be at your beck and call. If you tell me Catina's house, you better darn be at Catina's house; if you tell me tennis center, you better darn be at the tennis center, because I tell you, I am there. I think you better get used to walking, pal. You can walk e v e r y s i n g l e step home, and you can start right now. And next week, the answer is NO; I will pick you up at school every day, and that will be enough. Am I making myself perfectly clear?
MOSES: Um. Yeah. OK.

I go home, feeling rotten. Because there is only a sick satisfaction in blowing it so profoundly; there's not a real happiness. So I mope at being taken for granted, and I mope at being so vituperative to my good-natured son.

I watch the back yard to see him walking over the hill, completing the mile or two walk from the tennis center to our house. I call him upstairs to apologize for my rant. No apology needed it turns out ... he had put me on speakerphone.

"Catina and everybody were wetting thier pants" is the exact description of the effect of my tirade on Moses' friends. Guess we both got what we deserved.