With Tim, Anything is Possible

This week we had an extremely rare Monday night FHE. For whatever reason, the kids had decided that they NEEDED to go to the dollar store to blow some fresh earnings on pathetically cheap plastic junk. I hate the dollar store. It’s the ultimate Wal-Mart—buying purely for the pathological joy of buying—of seeing, coveting, and owning a thing. Everyone who shops there, even my kids, knows that the thing they are buying is just a 3-D image etched in plastic. They might as well buy a picture of a gun as the thing they do buy at the dollar store. They always cry, though. They know it won’t work, they know it will break, but they still cry when it does. Watching a kid waste his money is not pleasant, but watching him waste it at the dollar store is something else. The dollar store is the ugly underbelly of our consumption mad society.

So it seemed a bit ironic to ME that Tom decided to dissuade the kids from wasting their money by teaching them an FHE lesson about…Warren Buffett. Tom owned a candy store when he was little. He made a killing off the neighborhood kids. Those of you who have discussed politics recently with him probably have the mistaken belief that he’s a left coast socialist. No way. He’s a die-hard capitalist, and like any good capitalist, after the lesson he carted off his eager-to-spend offspring and let them buy junk food for resale—at school.

When I found out about this plan, I tried hard to stop it. I pointed out that the Bellingham School District has just adopted a draconian nutrition policy which makes it a felony to be in possession of a Twinkie on school grounds. I pointed out that even if Tom is an unreconstructed capitalist, the schools are hotbeds of socialism, and any type of activity for profit (except, of course, the book fair) is strictly forbidden. I warned the kids that they would get sent to the principal’s office and threatened Tom that he would have to take the disciplinary calls. They all looked at me with amusement and told me not to be so paranoid.

Tim took his lollipops in his lunch box. He planned to sell them for 50 cents a pop. As he later told me, lots of kids (!) were interested, but none had thought to bring cash to school. Finally, he found a taker who actually had a quarter on him. They were just doing the deal when the lunchroom duty swept down and carted Tim off to…the Principal’s office. Tim was sanguine, though. “Well, I just thought I’d try it, and then if I couldn’t do it, the Principal would tell me, and I would stop. Mom, can I take some lollipops to Cub Scouts?”

I have to share some other Tim events:
Last week, while praying, he uttered the phrase, “Bless me to believe in my religion…(inaudible mumble)…” After he finished I asked him what “Mumble, mumble, mumble” was. He looked at me regretfully and said, “Because sometimes I doubt it.” I gave him a hug and asked him to tell me what things he wondered about. “Well, Mom,” he said, “Sometimes I think, what happens if there isn’t anything after we die? Maybe that’s just IT. Or maybe we keep coming back again and again as other people.” We went on to have an interesting conversation, but I thought, THAT’S the problem with Primary!!! They’re playing matching games while Tim is wondering about reincarnation!

My other recent favorite: Nigel had a friend, Amanda, over on Saturday and they found a old box of accordion fold computer paper someone had given me. While I was out of the room (five minutes, I swear, five minutes!) Amanda pulled the ENTIRE box of paper out and created a huge pile in the game room. Nigel, my obsessive-compulsive child, was standing by the door wringing his hands when I came back. In great distress he started crying, “I’m sorry, Mommy! I’m sorry, Mommy. We made a big mess! I’m sorry, Mommy.” I asked the boys to help me clean it up. Tim looked at the mess, looked at me, and then said, “Mom, this mess is almost bigger than my love for you.”