I solemnly handed my cellphone to my son Jack, who is about to turn 15 and is already a head taller than his mother. (Who, it must be confessed, isn’t very tall.)
“I’ve had this phone number since you were a baby,” I said. “Now it’s yours.”
“Cool,” Jack said in his startlingly deep voice. “Thanks.”
“This is kind of a big deal,” I explained to my underwhelmed adolescent. “You might have this phone number for the rest of your life. When I was a kid, every time we moved, we got a new phone number. But now you are going to have this forever phone number that has been mine since you were born.”
He nodded. “OK, thanks.”