Thursday, May 27, 2010

A Hard Lesson

Do you remember the first time in your life that you realized you had totally wasted your some of your hard earned money? Maybe you saved up for some hyped up toy with all kind of bells and whistles that turned out to be a piece of junk? Or maybe you simply bought an ice cream street from a street vendor only to drop it on the ground and watch it melt in a puddle of goo. I think many of us have an experience like this in our memory where we've built up something in our minds only to have it come crashing down before us. Yup, learning these lessons as a kid can be hard.

Case in point: Last week was the book fair at my girl's elementary school. Now, I'm not a fan of sending them with cash and an letting them let loose buying whatever they want. I find that at these book fairs (as well as most book stores) it's very easy to buy everything BUT a book. There are toys based on books, sticker books, trinkets and jewelry, journals, stationary and pens, and then my favorite- books about tv shows. I don't know about you but when I take my kids out to a bookstore I'm looking to buy BOOKS. However, it seems I always get harassed to buy anything but that.

But back to the story.

Ava kept asking me to give her cash to go to the book fair even though I had already stopped in with her after school one day and bought a small stack of books for her and her sister. Of course, this told me that she had her eye an additional non-reading material purchase that she knew I would not approve. After much whining, I said I would consider stopping in to look again as long as it was a BOOK that she wanted me to buy. This was followed by a big, dramatic *SIGH*.

That day when I picked her up from school she had a happy, yet somewhat suspicious smile on her face. As she packed all her things into her backpack I caught a flash of something pink stashed away with a Hello Kitty logo on it.

"What is THAT?" I asked.

Her head dropped. Suddenly a smudge of dirt on the floor became very fascinating.

"Weeellll..…….'" she trailed off.

"Let me see it! Where did it come from?" I asked again.

"……………. thebookfair." she said in the tiniest, mumbliest voice you can imagine.

Ava then reached into her backpack and pulled out a brightly colored Hello Kitty computer game. She handed it to me remorsefully, her head still bowed down and her lower lip sticking out.

"Ava, how on did you manage to pay for this?' I demanded.

"From my piggy."

From what I could remember, all she had in her piggy bank was a bunch of change- no dollar bills. Which led me to my next question:

"Uh, how much was it?"

"Seven dollars. I put it in an envelope." was her solemn response.

So now I'm picturing her going to the book fair, walking up to the mom who was volunteering that day and dumping a pile of quarters, nickels and dimes on the table and having her count it all up. This makes me stifle a giggle.

"Ok, well as long as you spent your own money I suppose it's ok. I just wish you would have told me. You shouldn't feel like you have to be sneaky, Ava. It's not nice."

"I know," Ava sighed.

I then take the game from her and turn it over in my hand, looking at the description on the back. I wonder what kind of computer game only costs seven dollars. I examine the front of the box again and then my eyes finally fall upon the little symbol in the lower left corner that read: "PC only"

We have a Mac.


Let's just say this is an incident she will not soon forget.

1 comment:

  1. this post made me laugh so hard. Tough lesson for Ava!

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