We all have a panic attack if our parents pick up our phones, right? Just the thought of them seeing the weird things that are in our mobiles is scary. What if they read the funny but abuse-filled text my bestie sent? Or what if they see something my boyfriend sent? God, it used to all sound like a scene from a horror movie…until my mom saw dirty pictures of my boyfriend on my phone! And if I thought it sounded like a horror movie, in that moment, I would have actually preferred to be in a horror movie.
I usually text my boyfriend before I go to sleep because we hardly get time to text each other. So that night too I had texted him – just a simple ‘Goodnight, love you!’, but I was too tired to wait for his message and fell asleep almost instantly!
I was woken up by my mother vigorously shaking me. ‘Wh-what happened?’ I asked getting up abruptly. ‘What is this?’ she asked, shoving my phone in my face. I was pretty groggy so I could not see what she was talking about. ‘That’s my phone…’ I tried to make sense. ‘What is this in your phone?’ I rubbed my eyes and looked again – it was a picture of my boyfriend without a shirt on! Under it he had sent, ‘Goodnight, love, hope this brings you sweet dreams!’
My mind has had a storm of lies backed up for any situation like this but in that moment, not a single thought came to me other than, ‘Oh shit, shit, SHIT!’ I continued to stare at my mom blankly and had no clue how to handle this situation. In a moment of a little courage and mostly just sleep I told her, ‘That’s my boyfriend.’
She didn’t say anything for a while, just kept looking at me like she was about to hit me. And I remember thinking how this was it, I was going to get kicked out of my house in the middle of the night, great!
Then she sighed and sat down on the edge of my bed. ‘How long have you been dating him?’ she asked. ‘Um, just a few months.’ I replied ‘Is it appropriate for him to send you such pictures?’ she asked. ‘I think he was just joking, mom’ I said. There was a moment of silence as she considered this. ‘Do you also send him such pictures?’ she asked with a jerk. ‘No, no, no. I don’t!’ I replied. Truth be told, I did. But in that moment, the lie seemed more safe. ‘I want you to be careful with these guys, don’t do anything stupid.’ she said. By stupid, I assumed she meant I should not lose my virginity to this guy. So I nodded. I can’t possibly lose my virginity again, right?
Finally she got up and said ‘Call him over someday, I want to meet him.’
‘I will,’ I replied. Just as she was about to walk out the door I stopped her. ‘Mom, you still have my phone.’ ‘Oh, yeah…’ she said ‘I wanted to call your mausi on Facetime but I think I will do that tomorrow. Here.’ she handed me the phone and walked out of my room.
Breakfast next morning was all kinds of uncomfortable. And when I told my boyfriend about it he refused to ever meet my mother. Eventually, however, everyone got over it and I guess all’s well that ends well, right?
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