Last weekend, as we drove home after a little shopping, the skies opened up. Rain poured down in buckets. You could almost call the precipitation Biblical.

That didn’t surprise me at all. I saw the storm as God’s way of commenting on the tremendous shift in the universe which had just taken place.

Maria bought a cell phone.

I don’t think that the rain signaled any sort of displeasure with the purchase. I just think the whole thing took everyone by surprise. I honestly thought I would help my daughter buy a cell phone long before I helped my wife make the same decision.

Part of the reason was that she doesn’t adapt to technology as easily as I do. Maria really sees no reason to follow the trends. The other reason it took this long is that she never really needed it. As a stay-at-home Mom, she had very little use for a cell.

Besides, neither one of us are phone people. The whole reason I switched to a pre-paid phone a few months ago was that I never came close to using all the minutes I paid for in a traditional plan. I knew Maria would use even fewer.

For the past seven years, she hasn’t worked much outside of the home, and we almost always knew where to find her.

In fact, I can only think of a handful of times when I felt like I just had to call her, but couldn’t. Most of them revolved around times she was out driving late, and I worried about when she would come home.

She recently took a friend out for a birthday celebration and stayed out pretty late. I had trouble falling asleep, but didn’t worry that much because I knew everyone else had a cell.

That strategy of relying on someone else didn’t help a couple of weeks ago. Maria has started working part-time and had plans to help out one night recently.

The problem was, plans changed at the last minute. Maria had already started home after visiting with friends in Dillsburg so we had no way of getting in touch with her. If she had a cell, she probably could have visited longer instead of rushing home to drop Bridget off with me before heading into work.

Apparently, Maria didn’t need any more situations like that to make up her mind. As we headed out for dinner Saturday night, she announced we would go out to get her a cell phone afterwards.

I felt a mixture of surprise and pride. Like I said, I didn’t expect this to happen, but I really like when she makes a leap like this. I was almost as proud as I was when I realized she loved TiVo.

So we stood there by the pre-paid cell phone rack – did you really think she’d get anything else? – and mulled over the options. After a little hemming and hawing over how many minutes to buy, Maria had her own cell phone.

I’m just glad we only got rain and not lightning to celebrate.