Working Hard for the Money

You may remember the policy we have in the house regarding the purchase of large ticket items by the boys. First of all, mom and dad must approve of the item to be purchased. Secondly, the boy must pay for half of it out of his piggy bank, and earn the other half from chores assigned by mom and dad. R is the only one who has used this policy -- he bought a much desired Pokemon game for his DS (which he and his brother have played for over 100 hours in the year or so that he has owned it.) T has always been a saver -- I think he had over a hundred bucks in his piggy bank AFTER we went to Disney world. Anyway, the object of his desire was a Nerf gun that shot out sponge bullets machine-gun style. He saw it while buying a birthday present for a friend and decided right then that he really, really wanted it. It was forty two dollars! An extremely high price for a Nerf gun, but this one was an automatic Nerf gun. I told him I'd talk to dad about it.

The next night he nicely asked me if I spoke to M about it yet. "Oh no, I forgot!" I told him. "That's okay, mom, no problem. Maybe you'll remember tonight." That conversation happened three nights in a row. Finally, I remembered to mention it to M. Of course, M saw no problem with a machine gun style Nerf gun. So, I let T know. He lit up like a Christmas tree and said, Great, what chores can I do? Do you have any worth ten dollars? (No fool, that boy.) We did find a five dollar job -- clean up all the dog poop in the back yard that accumulated over the winter when it was hidden in the snow. What a job! I told him on Friday night that he could get five bucks for that. Wouldn't you know it, but on Saturday morning, he was out there at the crack of dawn (7:30) while M and I were still sleeping and shoveling poop. He sure gave his walking cast a work out making trips back to the woods to dump the poop and back to the lawn to collect it. When I woke up, I saw what he was doing and gave him a plastic bag to collect the poop in so he didn't have to make so many trips to the woods.

When he came in after that job was done, he marched over to the counter and grabbed a piece of paper. He wrote $5 in the middle of the page and drew a thermometer on it and filled in about a fourth of it. "What else can I do?" he asked. Here is what he did over the course of the weekend to earn his half of the gun:

• Poop duty for five months of poop (yowzers!)
• Pick up the sticks in the back yard so the lawn mower won't break when it's christened for the season
• Sweep and mop the kitchen floor
• Vacuum the water in the basement with the wet/dry vac -- three times over the two days
• Clean the downstairs bathroom
• Clean the upstairs bathroom

He proudly told me on Sunday at about 2:00 pm that he had earned his half of the gun. So, we took off for the store. I had told him that dad and I would pay the tax on it and buy the batteries. (That's before I realized that it took six D batteries -- those things are expensive!) Anyway, he is one happy boy. I asked him if he was proud of himself for having a goal and working hard to get it accomplished. He said, "Proud? No, I don't think I'm proud. But I'm really very impressed that I did it so fast." Well, there you go.

He loads up his gun with all 25 "bullets" that it came with. He's sitting on the landing at the top of the stairs so that he can ambush his brother.

Rambo's got nothing on this guy!

Trek Yourself Widget

Hail, Hail, Austin

We had a fun time at the wedding in Austin. It was nice for M and I to get away on our own and it was great to share our friend’s special day. I didn’t get the sunshine that I was hoping for. We had rain and thunderstorms both days that we were there. During the rehearsal dinner, a huge storm rolled through which had hail the size of golf balls….golf balls! I’ve never seen anything like it before and boy was it loud!! When we went out to the parking lot we realized that there were a bunch of cars that were damaged, including broken mirrors. Our mirror was in tact, but our rental car had about 300 golf ball sized “dimples” all over it. Three hundred or more. Golf ball sized. Egads. M quickly called the rental car emergency line to report the occurrence. We were the laughing stalk of the Hilton valet team when we rolled back to the fancy four star hotel (that I got on Price Line for cheap). For the next day and a half, M would joke with the valets “be real careful and don’t scratch it” when we dropped it off and “hey, what did you do to my car!” when we’d pick it up. Funny. The part that is not funny is the debate over who will pay for the damages. Even though it’s an Act of God, the rental company holds us liable. We turned down the insurance because our AmEx Gold Card would cover it. AmEx says that we didn’t sign up for that service this year (even though it has always been a regular part of the Gold Card service, which is one of the reasons I pay the big bucks to have the darned GOLD card in the first place.) The worse case scenario is that our regular car insurance pays for it, but who wants to get their premiums raised due to a doggone hail storm? The boys had a great time staying with Gramma – they died Easter eggs, decorated a pussy willow Easter tree with mini egg ornaments; went to Chuck E Cheeses; fished with their uncles; flew kites on Easter day (family tradition on M’s side); and were very good during Easter mass. All in all it was a fun time. M and I arrived at Gramma’s by 4:00 on Easter, just in time for tasty appetizers and a delicious Easter dinner.