Can you hear me? Dad smashes daughter's phone over huge text bill

By Michael Winter at 07:07 PM/ET, April 08, 2009, USA Today

Dena Christoffersen likes to text.

In one month alone the Cheyenne, Wyo., 13-year-old sent 10,000 texts and received about 10,000, mostly at school.

As KUSA-TV calculates, that works out to more than 300 texts over eight hours, every day. It all adds up — especially if your family's phone plan doesn't include texting. Dad hit the roof when the bill arrived: $4,756.25. Then he hit Dena's phone — an LG — with a hammer.

"It just hit us like a rock, like you're stepping into a bus," Gregg Christoffersen said. He and his wife, Jaylene, thought texting had been disabled on their Verizon plan.

Dena learned a valuable math lesson: Good grades are inversely proportional to the amount of texting. "She went from A's and B's one semester to F's in two months," dad said. Now that her texting is down to zero, Dena's grades are on the rise. Being grounded until the end of the school year also is boosting her academic signals. "I felt really bad, and I have learned my lesson," a contrite Dena told KUSA, head bowed.