In case you are looking for some entertainment that will both terrorize skids and also allow you to enjoy your favorite music, I highly recommend this little piece of gold, which will cost you $260, minus a $50 mail-in rebate.

My SO went to the casino on a whim, and won $1,000! So we did some shopping for things for the new house. Our thermostat doesn't work the greatest, so he said he wanted to get a new one. We ended up getting a Smart thermostat from Best Buy that has Alexa, which you can also operate from your phone. We didn't even realize it plays music and you can even make announcements over it remotely, or "drop in" on all Alexa devices and actually hear what's going on in the room. We decided to mess with the skids when they came to our house. I "dropped in" to hear if skids were home the first day they were with us, which makes a little "bloop" noise on their end, and could hear SS13 trying to talk to the thermostat. He said "Alexa, play a song". Since I was listening, she wasn't doing what he asked. I could hear him say, what is wrong with this stupid thing, why isn't she doing it? I was just laughing. Then I recorded a voice announcement and sent it over to our thermostat (I was at work), saying "What are you doing??", in a voice that didn't really sound like me. I immediately dropped back in so I could hear his reaction.

SS: ..... "Hello....? Is someone there?"

Me: (This time typing a message, which gets announced on his end in the Alexa voice). "Did you do your chore??"

SS: "Hello? Is someone there? I'm out. This is creepy! That's it, I'm out".  *sound of him running upstairs*

I was DYING.

I dropped in again a little while later to see if I could mess with SD, and could hear my SO talking to skids. I heard SS telling him, "Why did you have to get an Alexa? She's creepy, she keeps making these random blooping noises and talking!". I then get a text from my SO: "Stop dropping in on me!".  LOL. He could hear the little bloop noise of me listening. He told me later he wished he had had messed with them earlier.

This made my entire week. This thermostat was worth every penny. I told my SO that while we could totally tell skids about the announcement feature, we should NEVER tell them about the "drop in" feature, because that may come in super handy once they are older and we may need to check on if they're getting in trouble at home. As of now, they have no idea.