So, my son has been working for months at Busch Gardens, local amusement park. He loves it, its good pay, yada yada. His father (my ex) sent him a PSP for his birthday (first gift in about 4 years) and a few games. Was a pretty big surprise for all of us that he actually followed through on something. Between this and the adoption papers signed for Kat, it has been a banner year for Mike.
Anyway, getting to the point. My son has had the PSP for less than a month. He decides to take it to work for play during his breaks. I'm assuming mostly to show off as boys his age do. (He is 17 after all) Well guess what. It got stolen. Along with the brand new game Vince bought and the $90 memory stick. He failed to report it to work since he never declared to them that he even brought it in. He also failed to remember to bring his lock with him to lock his friend's locker after putting said toy inside.
Nothing I can say will even begin to teach him this lesson any better except, you should have left it at home, or never brought it in the first place. For pity's sake.. there are thousands of employees up there. Who is going to notice someone going through empty/unlocked lockers? Who is going to care? If you are stupid enough to fail to lock up your belongings they are going to walk. My husband had his entire locker contents (playstation, games, cd's etc) emptied out of a LOCKED locker before, and Vincent KNEW this.
I'm in no position to help him replace it. I offered some suggestions about ebay and selling some of the games he got that he didn't like to help raise the money. His father mentioned helping him replace it as well (though we suspect the one he sent in the first place was a gift to himself anyways). I just don't know what to do. In a year, my son will be 18 and technically on his own. He still cannot drive, he has no permit even since he failed the test four times. He also still cannot manage his money as he went negative again, putting himself $80 in the hole. We covered it for now, but need it back and that leaves him a total of $10 bucks out of his current paycheck since his hours are cut.
I love my son, but sometimes I despair that he'll actually be able to make it on his own. I have taught him the lessons, I cannot make him learn them except the hard way it seems. At least he doesn't have to make bills right now or worry about having enough to eat (although he needs to seriously eat less, but that is another whole blog entry).
I think learning it the hard way will be his mantra for the next few years at least, and that really breaks my heart.
