Friday, August 03, 2007

Pieces of Crap and the Children who Love Them

1. When my children returned from their visit to my mother-in-law's today each of them was clutching a cheap personal fan that she purchased at a dollar store. She keeps a drawer full of prizes that the kids can choose from as they are leaving, and one disadvantage of not bringing them home myself is losing veto power over the prize. Henry's broke coming out of the package, so we never had to try and install its batteries. Lucy's was missing, so I thought it was left behind. 1 fan + 2 kids = a very long afternoon.

2. Henry and I discovered the second fan in the garage during Lucy's nap. I made good on my promise to install batteries, and actually let him use it. This was no mean feat considering the wires were falling out and the switches had to be put back in by hand. It worked for about three minutes and then the fan blade broke off leaving several shards of plastic behind. Then I had to convince him that it was necessary to remove the batteries, otherwise someone was bound to get hurt. "But I'll just use the light!" he protested. (No kidding, this thing claimed to be a light, a fan, and a pen!)

3. Later as we were getting Lucy up from her nap he informed me that the pen portion of Lucy's fan no longer worked.

This is why I always encourage them to choose the crayons from the prize drawer.

1 comment:

Auntly H said...

Light, fan and pen! And none of them work? That doesn't sound like much of a "prize" to me. Happily, no one gave me such a gift for my b-day. I got things like wine, books, and fenders for my bike. Not bad for an old girl.