It seemed like the reasonable plan. And it was a strategy that seemed to be working quite nicely ... at least until the mail arrived last weekend.

It wasn't really a bad plan. In fact, more often than not, it worked out just fine.

We had a Chuck E. Cheese birthday party for the oldest on his fifth birthday, so we had a Chuck E. Cheese birthday party for the youngest when he turned 5. (For those who don't know, that is clearly parenting above and beyond the call of duty!)

I coached Little League teams for the oldest, so I coached Little League teams for the younger. My wife was a den mother for the first, so she was a den mother for the second.

Then, later, I bought them each their first car. OK, so maybe that's a far cry from giving them each a few extra tokens at Chuck E. Cheese, but I had my reasons.

First of all, they were both used cars. And with each one came the deal—keep the grades up, participate in sports, and get involved in other activities at the high school ... or lose the keys.

Well, they were both honor students, they earned six varsity letters apiece, and they were both student body officers (that's not bragging, just the facts ... OK, maybe a little bragging, too).

They kept up their end of the deal, and so did I.

But then there was the telephone.

Now, there was a method to our madness with this one. We let the boys have their own phone so that we could have our own phone.

It started back around the time the older was a high school junior. The deal was that we would pay the basic rate. There weren't to be any long distance calls, but if a toll showed up he was on the hook for the bill. None ever did.

Then the younger came along ... he didn't quite get the concept.

"What's this call to San Diego on your phone bill?" I asked him after we received about the third bill.

"San Diego?" he responded. "I dunno. It wasn't me."

"Well, let's see," I added. "The call was made at 1:18 a.m., and whoever made the call was on the phone for 27 minutes."

"Hmmm, maybe it was you," he suggested.

"When have you ever seen me awake at one in the morning?" I asked.

"Come to think of it," he responded, "when have we ever seen you awake after nine at night?"

"Hey, I think you're missing the point here," I snapped. "This is about your telephone practices, not my sleeping habits."

Well, maybe the two really go hand-in-hand. Because not only are his calls resulting in some unwelcome toll charges, more recently they were also interrupting my slumber when he arrived home for the holidays.

You see, our bedrooms share a wall. So his late-night telephone conversations over winter break were rather disturbing.

It was bad enough on his outgoing calls, when I had to endure the muffled murmur of his whispering voice just so long until I finally stomped down the hall and shouted, "Get off that darn phone! It's one in the morning!"

But then there were the incoming calls. Ever try to get back to sleep after the phone rings at 2 a.m.?

The big event came last weekend, though, when we got the bill for "the call." No, not the monthly bill—this was a special bill for one single telephone call. And it was a doozy.

It was a collect call made from Wisconsin at 4 a.m. (EST) on Christmas Eve ... he not only accepted the charges, he talked for 238 minutes!

"What the heck is this?" I shouted when I opened the mail on Saturday. "We just got a phone bill for a 238-minute collect call from Madison, Wisconsin, on Dec. 24 ... to the tune of $136.54! On your phone!"

"Uh, um ..." he stammered.

"Do you even know anyone in Madison, Wisconsin?" I asked.

"Well, there's this girl ..."

"Ah ha, I figured it was a girl," I said. "I knew it couldn't have been a call to Santa Claus!"

He glared at me, then said, "Like I was saying, this girl I know was back there visiting her grandparents for Christmas, and she wanted to talk."

"At four in the morning?" I blurted.

"Don't worry," he grumbled, "I'll pay for it."

"You bet you will," I barked. "What's more, I'm yanking that phone out of your room!"

You know, life seemed so much easier at Chuck E. Cheese.

Want to talk? Call me at 408.354.3110, ext. 31, or drop me a note at dsparrer@svcn.com.