I'm pretty sure I had a point when I began this post, but I forget what it was.

I don't think about cell phone covers all that much in a given day, but that's because I'm an old dinosaur who views his cell phone as either a necessary evil or an incredible annoyance.

Or as the thing that falls out of my pocket when I'm sitting at my desk, and then I accidentally run it over with my desk chair, resulting in it no longer working anymore.

But the kids these days - -they do go nuts over things like cell phone covers, accessorizing their phones the way earlier generations dressed up their Trapper Keepers, or the way Paris Hilton treats boyfriends/chihuahuas.

Which gives me, as a parent, a golden opportunity to do two things: (1) lecture kids on how, when I was their age, we didn't go around making our cell phones look all fancy-schmancy, and you know why? Because we didn't have cell phones, that's why! We had the Atari 2600, and it wasn't even called that, it was just the Atari, and you mostly played Combat on it and I was pretty good at that game.

And (2), I get to give the kids cell phone covers as presents, and get extra-credit on birthdays and things like that -- giving the cell phone covers as an added little gift to the kids, like a stocking-stuffer, only better, because, like I said, not only do they like it, but it also gives me a chance to lecture.

And another thing! We had Pitfall!, and it was pretty fun, too, even though it was kind of repetitive.