iParents.

My Mom and Dad got their first iPhones.

Obviously, this came as a serious shock to the entire family.

We are just so accustomed to Dad calling from the car when he needs an address,

(“Are you near a computer?” // “No Dad, but I have my iPhone…”)

and Mom sending depressed texts,

(“Mom! I’m Pregnant!” // “yay”)

and both of them looking down their noses in disdain at their children’s shiny rectangular addiction problems.

(No, I didn’t really text my Mom when I was pregnant, but that’s the response I got for all fantastic news, and I’m positive that a positive pregnancy test wouldn’t have varied from the norm.)

So it filled my heart with tremendous joy (that could be expressed with every happy emoticon in the iPhone dictionary which of course they don’t know how to use yet) when, on family vacation, after the kids went to bed, every family member had their iPhone out, quietly feeding their iAddictions.

I even put mine away one night and sat on the couch motionless so I could gloat that I was the only person not looking at their crack rock.

And then I was even more gleeful when I caught my mother looking very much like me in my natural pose:

And my life was made complete when I received my first textual emotions from my mother.

So. Why did they finally bend?

I don’t know that anyone has the answer to that.

It could have been because my Dad’s doctor told him to lose weight and then added, “it would be a lot easier for you if you had an app for that. Or a phone that could have an app for that.”

Or it could have been the fact that their flip phone’s flips were about flipped out.

Or perhaps, maybe, just possibly, they wanted to be like us.

But it’s definitely not that last one.

So after much pondering of our new family paradigm, here are the top ten things that I predict will happen now that my parents have iPhones:

10. My Mom will text me one day and ask me how to access The Google.

9. My parents and I will have a yearlong World War over Twitter – me trying to explain its greatness, and them acting like obstinate teenagers. Something I never did to them.

8. My Mom will be able to actually see the photos I text her, rather than texting back “I cant see it its too small”

7. My Dad will become a Jedi Master at Bad Piggies. He builds cars for a living, for crying out loud. But he will not get addicted to Candy Crush. The first time I get a Candy Crush Facebook Notification from my Dad, I predict that the world will end within an hour.

6. My Mom will find some sort of Farmer’s Almanac App to send her push notifications when it’s time to plant things. And when to encourage her chickens to copulate. And how best to season her compost pile.

(I personally think Paprika would be a nice touch.)

5. My Dad will complain about how much less pocket real estate his flip phone took, and he will never ask Siri for help, no matter how badly he needs directions.

4. My Mom will Pocket-FaceTime me weekly.

(After I wrote this, she called and FaceTimed me three times in a row during dinner. After I sent her an toothy-angry emoticon, she apologized and said that she was trying to add me to her favorites. And for that, I forgave her.)

3. My kids will teach my parents how to do 99% of the iStuff they ever learn.

2. One day, my parents are going to tell us we were right. And wonder how they ever lived without it.

1. One day soon after that other one day, they’re going to realize that they’re addicts. And curse us for allowing them to ever go down the wide iPath that leads to destruction.