We went to a local pizza joint that we've lived near for 18 years and never set foot until last month. It's a dumbed-down Chuckie Cheese without any sort of gaming to the games. It's strictly kiddie gambling - throw the money in and get x # of tickets. Totally addicting.
We went since my DH is going out of town, and it was our goodbye dinner. Of course, I work days, he works nights, so he is only able to spend 15 minutes with us before he's off to teach. An expensive goodbye dinner for someone who is hardly there to say goodbye to.
I go to the counter and ask to have change for a $20. The very nice young man said "Would you like (5) 4's?"
"Uh, Yes." I said afraid to correct and then confuse him. (Plus if he actually had 5 $4 bills, I'd be in fat city.)
After spending our (5) 4's, we are ready to cash out. My daughter's saving hers for a bigger toy (smart girl.) My son's got his eye on about 10 things, and I'm carefully subtracting each prize on scrap paper. Meanwhile, a not-so-bright doped-up helper stands looking at me with glazed eyes. Finally, he starts calculating and comes up with better numbers than I did. I ask him for a remaining receipt so son can use the rest later. He just looks at me and says "Here, just take this back," and hands me the original tickets receipt. So we got about $20 worth of "free" stuff (which amounts to about 1 paper glider, 1 super ball, 1 smiley bank and assorted candies.)
What this says about America:
1.) We'd rather gamble than read to our kids.
2.) Family time is best spent when we're hardly together.
3.) Our kids are great gamblers but know carp about math.
4.) We thieve against "the man" and have hardly a speck of remorse.
Despite my third eye over the night, it was great fun and we'll go back soon. A few more trips, we'll have enough for the plastic lava lamp. Now that's something to take pride in!
As a side note, my son is designating his new smiley bank as his "mission bank" so he can "buy people in other countries rice and books." Now that's my little man. Gambling for God. The American Way.
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6 comments:
Right on! Good for your son. I wonder if he'll ever actually put any money in that bank. My kids start out with the best intentions, but very little ever goes into the donation bank. (By the way, check out moonjar.com for a cool money lesson thing for kids.) Though I will say that my kids tend to be compassionate when it comes to homeless people. They always want to give them a buck or at least some change.
Thanks, that's a great link. My parents used to have us give 1/10, save 1/2 and keep the other 1/2 for what we wanted. It worked out fairly well, with a bit of dipping into various cans, but I bought my 1st car with the save can $.
It's important to start young.
I wish I'd gotten more lessons on saving while I was young. Maybe I'd be better at it today.
I really liked this piece...yes kids require to be taught values young dont they...
as a new parent, this depresses me, in a way. i had visions of a literary childhood for my son. but he'll be a video junkie, i'm sure.
america is falling apart. but your son gives me hope.
I promised myself my kids wouldn't watch too much tv, play video games, etc. etc. (Not to mention not spill food all over the restaurant when they were young.) Well, things didn't quite work out as planned.
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