Redundency fun with the DMV

I think I mentioned that we just got a newer used car for Laura. Since we had to shell out money to license it, I checked the DMV website to check how much we'll need.

For a living, I am a QA Tester of software programs. I am paid to notice things that most people ignore. Looking at this page, I was struck by this field:



Notice anything wrong with it?

The field is named "Vehicle VIN Number". VIN stands for Vehicle Identification Number. So basically, the field is called "Vehicle Vehicle Identification Number Number".

If you don't enter the right VIN, the following error appears: "Vehicle VIN Number is required."

Again, you are prompted to enter the Vehicle Vehicle Identification Number Number. To be fair, the VIN evolved into being called the Vehicle VIN Number due to its popular usage, but that still doesn't make it right.

It's a lot like when a person asks for an ATM machine. You are basically asking for an Automated Teller Machine Machine in which you will enter your PIN number, or Personal Identification Number Number if you prefer...

Laura drives a stick shift... sort of...

We recently got a used car for Laura. It was decided that we could no longer put off getting a different car for her. I guess the fact that it leaked oil like a stuck pig, has had no air conditioning for the last two years, shuddered at stop lights, shaked a little when accelerating and had over 240,000 miles on it had something to do with it losing it's appeal in Laura's eyes. I guess she didn't like the drenching car rides home in 100 degree weather. I tried to tell her that sweating is a cleansing process and to enjoy it, but she didn't buy it.

Laura spotted her dream car one day when we dropped her old car off to get a seal fixed in the engine block. We had to rent a car and the car they gave us was a Mazda 3. Laura fell in love with it. The fact that it seemed to be able to go from 0 to 60 in way under 10 seconds might have had something to do with it. Laura tends to be a speed demon and is constantly urging me to speed or questioning why I'm not speeding.

We looked at used Mazda 3s, but were disappointed to see that most were out of our price range that we felt comfortable paying. I suggested that she look at getting one with a manual transmission, which seemed to knock 1500 dollars off the blue book value.

Laura agreed that this was an option, but the only problem was that Laura couldn't drive a stick shift.

I had learned how to drive one when I was working bridge construction and had to drive the huge dump truck. The two cars after that had a manual transmission, so I have plenty of experience driving one. I had tried to teach Laura on two occasions when I coincidentally had a manual transmission car when we were dating. Those occasions were a disaster as Laura couldn't seem to get the car out of first gear.

I would smoothly say, "Eaaase out the clutch."

She would pull the clutch off very suddenly while punching the gas. The car lurched and lurched.

After many instances of this, I was no longer smoothly saying anything. Instead, I was screaming, "Stop! Stop! Stop!" as the car lurched and buckled forward. I was envisioning permanent transmission damage.

So it was with a big of apprehension when Laura decided that she was going to compromise and get the stick shift Mazda 3 that we had seen at a local car dealership.

Agreed, not everyone needs to know how to drive a manual transmission before buying one, although it helps.

I always think of the show The Amazing Race when I think of manual transmissions. The show has been on the air for years now, so you would assume that every contestant has seen the show by now. Every season, the contestants will get to a country and have to grab a car to drive that has a manual transmission. Most teams jump in and drive off. There is at least one team that will get in the car and go, "It's a stick! I don't know how to drive a stick!"

Now if you've ever seen the show, they always go to at least country where the dominant transmission is a manual one. Why on Earth would you not practice before you start filming the show? But I digress...

Laura has been out practicing on her own and is getting pretty decent at shifting. At first, she was cheating in that she'd come up to a Stop sign and then come to rolling stop and then go again, which totally defeats the purpose. I ordered her to come to a complete stop in preparation of the first time that she had to stop at a stop light.

We have been commuting together three days a week to save on gas and so far, it's been me that's driven her car to work. There are three reasons for this. One, she isn't confident enough to drive herself. Two, she claims that I tend to yell at her when she's suddenly forgetting how to shift into first gear, which is more or less true, but I disagree on the tone and severity of the yelling. Three, she likes to be dropped off at her building by the front door as it saves her the extra time that she'd normally be parking and walking back to the building.

She has taken the car to work by herself, but she's still nervous. Whenever Laura kills it at a stoplight, she seems to take a step back in progress. Then, she's more tentative, which makes it worse.

We saw the Simpsons Movie with Julia...

I'm starting to feel the need to get back into the swing of things and put out sordid details of my personal life for all of the world to read. Heaven knows, I don't spend nearly enough time dishing with my fellow employees to get all of this out of my system. My wife clearly is tired of hearing me talk about them as she recently admitted to me that she usually only pays attention to the first and last thing that I've told her, which is really quite touching.

On Saturday, we decided to go see a movie as a family. Usually, we're stuck with the family fare of movies like Ice Age, the Shrek movies, and such, but recently we did get to see A Night at the Museum with Ben Stiller, so we're hopefully starting to swing towards some movies we can all enjoy. Laura suggested that we go to see Underdog, but then I suggested that we go see The Simpsons Movie. Laura shrugged and said, "Sure". Julia seemed to be just as excited to see either movie, so it was settled on The Simpsons Movie.

I had heard from a co-worker who took his son to see The Simpsons Movie that it was very inappropriate for children. I heard it, but completely forgot that he told me this until he reminded me on Monday that he told me not to see it.

I guess I kind of knew what I was in for by taking out daughter Julia to see the movie. She had just turned 6 about two weeks ago. I remembered back that when I was her age I was often seeing movies that I probably shouldn't have like Jaws or Smokey and the Bandit. We also had HBO in our house so seeing those movies wasn't too hard because my parents couldn't sit down and watch everything with us. I think they were trusting the judgment of my older brothers, but they tended to gravitate towards the movies that my twin brother, Bill, and I shouldn't have been watching, so I'll just blame them (read with sarcasm guys...).

The Simpsons Movie is rated PG-13 and for good reason. While the series often features mature humor with their violence and sexual innuendo, it's still a little tame by movie standards. Free of the shackles of TV censors, The Simpsons Movie amps up the jokes to a more vulgar degree.

The movie centers around the pollution in the lake in Springfield and how Homer's love of a pig ultimately dooms the town. It seems hard to believe that the two are related, but they are.

One part of the movie really stood out for us...

Homer and Bart are fighting early in the movie. Homer then starts daring Bart to do things. Ultimately, he dares Bart to skateboard naked to the Krusty Burger and back or he'll call Bart cowardly for the rest of his life. Bart takes off naked. For a while, you only see his bottom. Then he switches to the front view and his lower is body blocked by a series of sight gags. Then, he moves behind a fence and you get a nice view of his... umm... noodle... before he trips and plasters his naked body in front of a glass window with only Ned Flander's french fry covering up that part.

Laura and I roared with laughter, but also cringed. At the same time, we both looked over at each other and winceed. Julia was roaring with laughter.

All in all the movie is really funny with only a few parts that made us wince: A character flips a crowd off, two guys kiss and a few references to sex. Otherwise, it's a real family pleaser!

The next day, we are at the YMCA to go swimming. Julia is getting dressed in the family locker room when she tells me, "Daddy, do you know what my favorite part of The Simpsons Movie was?"

I ask, "What?"

Now I'm not a genius by any stretch of the imagination, but I did gather some subtle hints that peaked my interest and gave me a good guess.

Earlier that day, I was getting dressed and three times during that process of getting dressed in my bedroom, Julia burst in. I finally had to yell at her to stop walking in as I was trying to get dressed.

So later that day at the YMCA when Julia said, "When you get to see Bart's WEINER!!", I really wasn't that surprised for some reason. I had a hunch you could say...

"You did, huh?" I asked sheepishly.

"YEAH! It was so FUNNY!!!" she laughed.

I laughed, but then reminded her that this probably isn't a very good topic to discuss at school because it was inappropriate. She agreed.

I think I remember bragging all the time in grade school that I got to see a lot of movies that I probably shouldn't have like Animal House and Caddyshack, but that was in the 70s when such actions were deemed cool. Nowadays, it could probably get you into some hot water with other nosy parents.

I would like to point out that we in no way let Julia watch stuff that's inappropriate for her. You would think that me with my liberal dose of unhealthy movies when I was younger wouldn't mind if Julia got exposed to movies for older viewers. Well, you would be wrong. While I cherish every memory of that time, it also made me a paranoid mess when I was growing up. You try to relax swimming in a lake during the summer when you think that there's a slight possibility that a shark like Jaws or piranhas like the movie Piranha are going to attack you. You try to sleep when you think that some demon in your house is going to possess you, like in the Amityville Horror. You try not to be afraid of spiders after watching Kingdom of the Spiders when you're a little kid. For good measure, show a little kid Earthquake and then ask him if he's afraid of the Earth moving beneath him.

This was a lesson, though. There are several sites out there, like Parent Preview, that screen movies and rate them based on family friendliness. They even list the objectionable parts. Next time, I'm going to check out that site before going to see a questionable movie.

Harry Potter and my criticisms...

I've been procrastinating in my writing for the past several weeks as I've been working on several book ideas, all of which will probably never see the light of day. Here's a small story about my liking of the Harry Potter books and my critiques of them.

...

I was going to write that I was sad to admit that I'm a Harry Potter book fan. Then I realized that this wasn't true. I am not sad at all to say that I like the Harry Potter books made famous by J.K. Rowling. I am somewhat embarrassed to admit it sometimes, but not sad.

I was first introduced to the Harry Potter books before the first movie came out. I was all set to do my rankings for the movie pool that some guys I know and I do, in which we rank the box office success of movies in the summer and winter. The first movie was set to come out and I was going to rank it low. I made the comment to my twin brother, Bill, that I didn't think that it was going to do that well. He assured me that there were legions of Harry Potter fans out there dying to see the movies. I had never read the books before. I had seen them in stores and I'd sometimes seen stories in the newspaper about the books, but I had never thought to read them.

Bill suggested that I read them because they were good, in his opinion.

The fourth book in the series, "The Goblet of Fire", was already out in stores. I borrowed a friend's copy of the first book, "The Sorcerer's Stone" and set to work reading it. I started when I was going on a software installation trip, which was a 3-hour drive each way. This was the perfect time to start. I didn't think I would gain much interest in the book, or care what happens in the book, but before I knew it, I had zoomed through 200 of the pages over the trip. Finishing that book, I checked out the next two books and devoured those in a timely fashion. Then, I borrowed the fourth book from Bill and tore through that, too.

It was nice to have the gift of being able to read the books without having to wait, but then I was like other fans and having to wait for the next three books to come out.

I read the sixth book, "The Half-Blood Prince", when it came out about two years ago when I started my new job. I had heard that someone was going to die in the book, which was hinted at as a beloved character. So of course, I sped through the book to find out who it was. I finished in record time and then became disappointed that I was going to have to wait a long time for the last book.

The final book came out Saturday, July 21st. I was one of those geeks out there clamoring for the book. I bought it and immediately tried to get through it in record time again.

While I was waiting this year, I had thought it would be best that I should re-read all the books in order because I remember that when I was reading the last book, I had to clamor my memory in vain for details about who some of the characters were.

I knew I'd never had the time or patience to read all six books, so I did the next best thing, I listened to the audio books. This was not easy. The first book is a manageable 8 hours long. The second is about 9 hours long. The third books clocks in at a little under 12 hours long. Then the fourth book cranks it up a notch and comes galloping it at 20 hours long! Just when I thought that was intense, the fifth book lumbers in like an elephant at over 26 hours long!! The sixth book takes a step back at under 19 hours in length. All in all, I had over 90 hours of audio to listen to in a month's time.

I managed to do it, and I was glad that I did. Because I couldn't skim, I was forced to listen to every detail of the story so I was reminded of things I that I didn't quite remember, like who some of the minor characters were, some of the odd side story details and things like that. What was really eye opening was that I felt like I was reading the sixth book, "The Half-Blood Prince", for the very first time. I was riveted as each chapter ended because not only had I not remembered what each chapter was about, but I didn't know what was going to happen next. I vividly remembered the last part of the book, but that was it.

"Had I even read the book?" I asked myself in disbelief.

So I finally got through every book with 10 days to kill until the last book came out. I purchased my book at midnight with the other fanatics (reading the first chapter while I was in line to buy it) and spent the next two days reading the whole thing. I literally couldn't sleep while I was reading it because I was thinking about the plot when I laid down and then my head wouldn't quiet to let me sleep. I tried going to sleep at 1 am on Saturday night, but seeing as I couldn't sleep, I kept tossing and turning. I decided to get up and read. Before I knew it, it was 3 am. Normally 5 hours of sleep would make me a zombie for that day, but I was as wide awake as I could remember on Sunday when I got up at 8 am. I started reading again. Finally, I finished the book at 9 pm Sunday night without getting it spoiled for me.

All in all, it was a great end to a great series. While I realize that it's a series meant for kids, it's definitely written so that any age can enjoy it, kind of like reading the Davinci Code.

Now that I'm done, there are a few things that bother me about the Harry Potter universe. I realize it's a fantasy world, but the world depicted in the Harry Potter books has a few flaws.

For instance, the books are set in the early 1990s, but the wizards in the Potter world still live as if it's the middle ages. They use quills and ink wells. The students at Hogwarts turn in their papers handwritten with the quills on rolled up pieces of parchment. The library is as medieval as possible with every book published in hard cover. There seem to be no copying machines or computers to help the students along. I would think that with all the advances that wizards have in their world, they would have something better to come along to make their lives easier when it comes to writing. The only thing that is shown like this is a Quick Quotes Quill used by a reporter for the newspaper, but that's about it.

Oh sure, they'll use magic to clean up a mess or repair something that's broke, but they still feel the need to be like the book copiers of the past.

The pictures in the Potter world are like three-dimensional composites of people with the subjects looking around, smiling, waving, etc. Sometimes, the subjects leave the photos because they have something better to do. This is a great idea, so why doesn't it apply to other technology?

I mentioned computers above. Why don't they use a lexus nexus-like super computer that is inhabited by a fairy spirit that can dish out whatever information that they want? It could have the same 3D pictures.

I also noticed that in the Potter world, that no one ever watches television or even has a television. In one book, some of the characters are huddled around a radio and listening to a song. Why don't they watch television? For a group of people that seem to love visual things, as evidenced by their advanced photos that move, paintings that talk, books that have personalities, etc. they seem not to care about missing television. What with their favorite game, Quidditch, being a very intense, visual sport, it would seem that television would have been a natural. While we're just adopting HGTV, they should be on 3D television by now.

This brings me to another oddity of the wizarding world, the use of owls. The wizards of the Potter world send owls for their letters and packages. While effective, it's hardly efficient. Sometimes, the owls have no idea where a person is and it takes them days to find that person. You would think that an instant message would be a lot quicker than having to wait for a message from an owl. In book 5, the students start a secret group and use gold coins to communicate with each other, but no one has invented the piece of wizard equipment that'd let you communicate like a cellphone instead of the clumsy method of owls.

When it comes time for wizards to use the Muggle (non-wizard) post office system, the wizarding world is perplexed. Harry got a letter from his friends in one book and the whole envelope was encased with stamps because they didn't know how many to use. Seeing as how they had to buy them, I'm sure they could have asked, but that would have been too obvious I guess.

Speaking of clumsy methods, I'm not a big fan of the wizards using a fire to communicate. In the books, they'll throw magic powder on a fire and stick their head in the fire to communicate with another person at the other end of the fire. While certainly clever, it's hardly convenient as the person must crouch down in front of the fire to talk. There is the added problem with what if the person doesn't have a fire going on the other end, but that's never a problem in the Potter world.

Like with other Muggle inventions, the telephone is beyond the grasp of wizard intelligence. Past attempts with Harry's friend, Ron, to try and use the telephone resulted in Ron shouting over and over because he didn't realize that he could be heard clearly. I can see why they prefer the fire method. Who among us doesn't want to get on our hands and knees on a hard marble floor and then thrust our face in a fire. Granted, forgetting to throw the magic powder into the fire first wouldn't be wise, but it's the price you pay for that kind of convenience.

Memories are another thing that I really don't understand in the Harry Potter universe. Wizards are able to extract silver strands of their memories and put them in vials. Then they can dump them in a stone basin called a pensieve. Then anyone can be plunged into the memory to see events that happened many years ago.

The pensieve is indeed a good story telling device as J.K. Rowling can go into flashback mode to show events that happened years ago for background purposes. Unfortunately, there are some loopholes in this. There have been a few times when Harry and his friends have seen something that no one believes, like when Lord Voldermort comes back in book 4. A few believe Harry, but most of the wizardly world don't. Couldn't they have extracted his memory of the event to show the truth? In the same book, another witness is killed (sort of) prior to the government officials hearing his confession, so the story isn't believe. Again, a pensieve could have saved them the trouble of having to wait a year to finally believe that Lord Voldermort had returned.

While I realize that this type of criticizing is pointless and on the geeky side, it's one of those things that I think about. J.K Rowling is supposedly going to be working on an encyclopedia of her Harry Potter world. Maybe she can enlighten me to my questions...

The Brownie Emporium

Here's a short story about having to lie to your kids, which as a parent, you tend to have to do from time to time. Looking back, I now wonder how many times my parents had to lie to us to do things...

...

A while back, it was my birthday. Normally on my birthday we celebrate it like usual with a dinner at Red Lobster. We started this habit because one of my favorite things to eat is Snow Crab legs.

On this day, Laura wasn't interested in going to Red Lobster because she just wasn't in the mood for seafood, so she hinted that I think of another suggestion. I always pass the Cheesecake Factory on the way to work. I had never been there, but since one arrived in the city, I had seen people at work with take out cheesecakes from there.

Seeing as I also love cheesecake, I suggested that we go there. Laura also loves cheesecake, so she was on board. The problem came when it was time to tell Julia where we were going.

She already has some favorite places to go. She's been to Applebee's a few times, so she likes that place. She also loves to go to Red Lobster because she likes to look at the live lobsters in the tank near the front. Getting Julia on board for the Cheesecake Factory took some convincing and when that didn't work, a little manipulation.

I came home from work that day and announced to Julia that we were going out to eat.

"Yay!" Julia shouted. "Where are we going?"

"We going to go to the Cheesecake Factory!" I said.

Julia wrinkled her nose and said, "No! I don't want to go to the Cheesecake Factory!"

"Julia," I said. "You've never even been to the Cheesecake Factory. How do you know that you don't want to go?"

"I don't like the Cheesecake Factory!" Julia said matter of factly.

"Julia," I pleaded. "The Cheesecake Factory doesn't just have cheesecakes. It has chicken strips with fries that you like."

"I don't want to go to the Cheesecake Factory!" Julia exclaimed and did a little hurumph move with by folding her arms with a downward gesture.

I think the problem was that Julia didn't understand what a cheesecake was. I remember when I was a kid, I thought that cheesecakes were made with actual cheese. That surely didn't sound like a pleasant mixture. Little did I know that there was such a thing as cream cheese that was different than the usual cheese. I'm sure that's what she thought, too. We were were getting more and more frustrated with getting her to understand that there were other things than a cheesecake at the restaurant. But looking at it from her side, I suppose if my parents wanted to take me to a place called The Liver and Onions Warehouse, I would have stomped my foot, too.

So I came up with a bit of deception to get the trip moving. It was getting a little late and we didn't want to have to wait for a table. Arguing with Julia had already wasted 10 minutes.

I said, "Okay Julia. We're not going to the Cheesecake Factory."

Laura looked puzzled, "We're not?"

"No," I said, "we're going to the Brownie Emporium."

Julia perked up a little. "The Brownie Em... Em...," she was starting to ask.

"Emporium," I said. "It's a restaurant that specializes in brownies."

"That's right," Laura said catching on. "We're going to a different restaurant."

"Brownies?" Julia asked to herself and somewhat to us. You could see her mulling it over in her 5-year-old mind. She liked brownies for sure.

"Okay!" Julia said. "Let's go!"

So off we went to the "Brownie Emporium". On the way there, I muttered to Laura, "What if they announce 'Welcome to the Cheesecake Factory' to us? Julia will know for sure that she's been tricked."

Laura winced, "We'll just have to see what happens."

As we pulled up to the Cheesecake Factory, Julia asked, "What does the sign say?"

Seeing as she's still learning to read, I said, "The Brownie Emporium" with a flair of my hands.

We got out of the car and walked towards the restaurant. Surprisingly, we were not given a "Welcome to The Cheesecake Factory" greeting at the door. Once we're seated, however, we did get the greeting.

The waiter arrived and said, "Welcome to the Cheesecake Factory! My name is (whatever it was) and I'll be your waiter tonight."

We winced and lookd over at Julia, who gave a little blemish of recognition that the name that was just announced didn't quite jive with what we told her. She gave a brief confused look, but didn't say anything.

Any doubts about the restaurant were dashed when she found out about the chicken fingers and fries, her favorite meal. At desert time, she tried some of our cheesecakes and enjoyed them.

Finally, when we're minutes away from leaving, I asked, "Guess where we just ate, Julia?"

"Where?" Julia asked.

"The Cheesecake Factory!" I exclaimed with a smile.

Julia gave a look of surprise and said, "Ohh!" If she was mad for being deceived, she sure didn't show it. I hated having to lie, but sometimes you need to lie to get this kid to go somewhere she doesn't want to go.

Murphy to go to the vet. Julia assumes death is coming...

Murphy has to go to the vet on Friday. She has a few problems. Rather than go into the details, let's just say that it may be that her diet isn't agreeing with her. I'll have to bring in a stool sample for the vet to check out. Yay for me! We're also going to get her checked out with some blood work to see if she's at risk for chronic kidney failure, which is what killed Moe. They were brother and sister, so it stands to reason that this may be genetic.

I'll be working that day, so Laura and Julia will have to take her in. Laura said that she told Julia that they were going to be taking Julia to the vet.

Julia smiled and asked without skipping a beat, "So she can go and die?"

Laura had been waiting for a response like that ever since we took Moe to the vet and didn't come home with him.

Laura told Julia, "No, she's not going to die! She's just a little sick, so the vet's going to check her out."

Julia thought for a second and asked with the same smile on her face, "And then she'll die?"

Laura laughed and said, "No! She's not going to die!"

Julia asked, "If she dies, can we get a kitty?"

"No! Julia, if Murphy dies, Daddy will be sad."

Maybe it's a little morbid that Julia is taking death to Murphy so loosely, but Murphy hasn't exactly been endearing herself to Julia. Julia will attempt to pet Murphy and Murphy will invariably take a swipe at her while protesting with an annoyed cat chirp.

Suzy and Boris, the two newest cats, let Julia do all sorts of things to them without protest. Even Moe, who I wrote about before, had no problem getting hassled by Julia. In his last week with us prior to getting sick, Julia could pick all twenty pounds of him up and hold him without any protest from Moe.

This isn't the first time that Julia has mentioned Murphy dying. Last year, she asked when we were going to get a new kitty.

I replied, "When one of the cats dies."

Julia though a minute and said, "Okay. I guess Murphy is going to have to die."

I was dumbfounded.

"Hey! That's my cat!"

I would worry, but I seem to recall me not being too shook up by a pet dying when I was kid. I remember my Mom telling Bill and I that she had to put our old dog, Tina, to sleep at the vet. I don't remember Tina much, but I remember her not liking Bill and I much. It's probably because we were young and prone to hassling her. She was old and probably not in the mood to be hassled.

I don't remember the response, but I'm sure it was along the lines of "Oh drag. Can we have some lunch?"

Julia gets an allowance

We're trying to instill some responsibility into Julia by requiring her to clean up after herself every now and then. As any parent knows, this is a tough task because kids have a hard time listening anyway. For example, recently I picked up a candy wrapper that Julia had left on the floor and I said, "Do something with this."

Now an average person of average intelligence would have walked over to the trash can nearby and deposited it in the can to forever forget about its previous blight on our carpet. Unfortunately, that's not how a child's mind works. Julia proceeded to walk across the living room and then dropped it on the edge of the carpet, thereby moving the wrapper from one end of the room to the other end.

I exclaimed, "What are you doing? Pick it up and put it in the garbage can!"

Julie sighed, but did go back and grabbed the candy wrapper. The wrapper did make it finally to the garbage can, much to the chagrin of my daughter who doesn't seem to grasp the concept of trash yet. I'll often find band aid wrappers that are sitting on her bathroom counter, which is literally right above where the trash can is. I guess it just didn't occur to her to throw them there. She must have been saving them for some other purpose...

Trying to get her to eat cleanly is another exercise in futility. Every night, Julia gets a small, snack-sized bowl of popcorn. This has been the routine for years in our house. As hard as we try to make this a clean routine, it just doesn't work out that way. I'm often dismayed at how much mess one child can make while eating popcorn. Most people will grab one or two kernels at a time and pop them in their mouth. Not Julia. She grabs a small handful, which then is kind of dragged across her lips into her mouth. It's like watching the Cookie Monster eat. Invariably, the floor becomes littered with broken popped kernels.

I have a fairly new Hyundai Sante Fe. I try to keep it clean, but any effort I put forth in the front seat is always negated by the mess in the back seat, where Julia sits. Since we travel about 25 minutes to work, we usually give her some sort of snack like fruit snacks crackers. Then we'll occasionally get McDonalds or Burger King when we have to travel to another city. Then there are the occasional trips to the mall complete with a cookie. And let's not forget her pre-school, which seems to have ample activities planned that end with a big baggie of treats being sent home with the kids.

These and other chances for snacks leads to a back seat that's almost always in a state of disarray. I'll open the door for her one morning and seemingly overnight, the floor is strewn with fruit snack wrappers, bits of snacks and other pieces of paper.

Speaking of bits of paper, I swear that her pre-school has an agenda to unload a truckload of art supplies...

Last year, when Julia was in her first pre-school class (she went again this year because we didn't want her to start Kindergarten yet), I would come to her locker and almost every day there was some sort of drawing, painting or sculpture. The drawings and paintings were okay, but good God were there a lot of them. We ended up throwing a bunch away, but I swear you can stack up what we saved from that class and it would be 5 feet high. I have several tubs devoted just to the drawings and paintings that Julia brought home. The sculptures were worse because they were always covered with tons of glitter or flakes or glitter flakes or something that glittered while it flaked off when you picked it up. I once joked to her teacher that for Julia's last day I was going to have Julia give her a sculpture that had every conceivable type of glitter or flakes on it, so that when she tried to pick up, a ton would fall off it.

So I digress, but the art projects build up on the seat if I don't remember to take them out and they flake...

Cleaning up with Julia is an exercise in patience in and of itself. Laura always insists that Julia needs to learn to pick up after herself, or she'll end up like a slob. Now I'm sure she didn't quite mean me, even though I was and sometimes still am horrible at picking things up after myself (When not kept in check, I get an array of trash around me that Laura calls a 'sphere of influence.' Just check my desk sometime and you'll see.), but I got the message.

The routine usually goes like this. I tell Julia, "We are going to clean up today before we go anywhere."

Julia will groan and say, "I hate cleaning up. It's so boring!"

I'll tell her something easy like putting her toys away and she'll hem and haw and groan and put it off. Then she'll ask if we can go somewhere or if she can go out and play. Again, I'll remind her to clean. This goes on several times, until I literally have to pull her along with me and I'll have to get her started.

So I was talking the other day to a co-worker about this and she mentioned that her and her husband started to give a weekly allowance to their son, who is six-years-old. He's expected to do his chores and in exchange, he gets an allowance, which he gets to spend on anything that he wants.

I had heard of this 'allowance' ritual, but I was never familiar with it. We never got an allowance from our parents. Our allowance consisted of us getting money sporadically from our parents when we'd beg to go see a movie or go to the school skate night. Most of the time, they'd give us the money, so Mom I'm not complaining. However, I was a little envious of kids that had an allowance. They were usually the kids that had the latest toy that they'd bring to school to show off.

I had also read about allowances in books. Usually, the books that I read were about the misadventures of some school-aged kid (like Henry Huggins), who had to come up with some money fast to either buy a new football or because he had to pay for damages because he accidentally broke something. So he had to pay for it or his parents would find out. The character would beg his parents for an advance on his 'allowance', but was usually shot down.

I tried to come up with an allowance one day when I tallied up a list of things I did around the house (taking out the trash, mowing the lawn) and came up with a reasonable amount, which was 5 dollars a week.

I showed this to my parents who immediately shot it down with no negotiation.

"You don't need an allowance," one of them said. "You already do all of those chores for us for free."

Crap. I learned a valuable lesson that day. Don't give up the candy store and then expect payment. They had a point.

It's just a little frustrating sometimes when you're a kid and you want money. Our parents made the mistake of giving Bill and I our own little cash register banks. They looked like the old style cash registers and worked similarly. You had a slot for each type of coin. You put the money into the slot, pulled the lever and the total changed. At first it was cool because I saw that I had about 4 dollars and some odd cents in change. Then it was a little depressing because I had no outlet for more money. I worried how I was going to get that total up past ten dollars until I struck on a solution: raid the lunch money basket.

Our parents had a lunch money basket above the sink that my Dad would put dollars and change into. It was for us kids to buy a lunch ticket or a daily lunch at school. I ran upstairs and silently as I could retrieved the basket. I fished out some change and snuck back downstairs. Growing bolder, I went back for more and more change. Pretty soon, my total had doubled. Then I got even bolder and snagged some dollars (the machine had a slot for dollars, too). Ka-ching! I was in double digit land...for a few hours.

It was a Sunday and my Dad usually filled up the basket that day. He opened the cupboard and started to retrieve his wallet when he exclaimed, "Who's been taking money out of this basket?"

My Mom asked what was wrong.

My Dad said, "There was a lot more money in here today and now it's almost gone!"

He looked over at us eating and asked, "Which one of you kids took money out of this basket?!"

We all looked at each other and said nothing.

"Which one?" my Dad asked again.

I believe it was my brother, Bill, who gave me up as he saw me put all the money into my cash machine. I was ordered to get the cash machine and empty it. Sadly, I sad goodbye to my short-lived windfall.

(Note: Bill disputes that it was him, although he does remember the incident. My point is, regardless of who turned me in, I was turned in because I don't think I'd be that stupid to turn myself in. Granted, I have incriminated myself before and after but not this time.)

So as I was saying, we thought it would be a good time to offer Julia her allowance. A few Sundays ago, we brought up the topic to her. We explained that we expected her to clean up after her toys and in her room. If she did that, every week she would get an allowance. I had originally thought 5 dollars was pretty decent considering inflation. Laura, on the other hand, lobbied for 3 dollars, which is what we offered her.

The thought of money of her own slowly sunk in and she enthusiastically said, "OK!"

That day, it was like a dream. Julia picked up the floor of the living room upstairs. Downstairs, she worked for over an hour on picking up her toys off the floor and into their proper place. She would keep asking me if she was done, but when I pointed out new things for her to pick up, she didn't complain once! She kept on cleaning and cleaning and at one point even helped me move things to give the basement a good vacuuming. Finally, at the end of the day, Julia asked for her money.

"Can I have my two dollars now for my allowance?" she asked.

There was a wrinkle. Julia had met my allowance offer and counter offered with a lower price. I thought about reminding her that I had offered three dollars, but instead I said, "Okay. You can have your two dollars."

That's what the allowance has stood at.

The next week, things didn't go so smoothly. I mentioned that it was allowance day and that Julia needed to clean up before getting her allowance.

She thought a minute and said, "That's okay, I don't think I want my allowance."

Oh she's good! She re-countered her own counter offer by saying that now she didn't need my money! I'm assuming she thought that this would get her out of her chores, but I had to disagree with her. I reminded her that with our without an allowance, that she would still have to do her chores.

She thought again and finally said, "Okay. I'll take my allowance." With that, she helped clean although with some of the old complaining of "Am I done yet?" and "This is boring."

I guess one week of bliss was all that I was going to get...