I’ll take…less money

The other day, Emily and I were working around the yard.  I was mowing and Emily was planting a ton of new flowers that we got.  Well, actually we got them 3 weeks ago but that’s beside the point.  Anyhow, as we toiled away, the kids were doing…nothing.  I have seen this trend before and am pretty sure I was not able to get away with that when I was a kid.  Sure, I had my goof-off times, but I definitely helped out doing work too.

Seeing an opportunity for a lesson in life, I asked both kids to drag themselves away from their books (yeah, I know, I could have worse problems than kids who read) and come outside.  We have a number of outdoor chairs that we never use.  We never use them in part because we never clean them off.  The other part is we hate mosquitoes but that’s not the point of the story.  Anyhow, I asked the kids to get soap and a brush and scrub all of the chairs.

They fussed and whined.  There were ants and spiders on the chairs…and dirt too!  After a bit, I got irritated and grabbed a chair, ants and all, and told the kids to “grow a pair” and just carry the chairs to the driveway.  Isaac knew what I said and smirked, but I had to explain that phrase to Abigail.  Yeah, I got a lesson too…keep my mouth shut!

Anyhow, they got going and had a lot of fun with it I think.  Towards the end, they were negotiating for payment.  I didn’t really have payment in mind when this all started.  I had to laugh at their conversation though…”We’ll do it for a dollar a chair”, said Isaac.  ”No, I’d rather do it for 25 cents a chair.”  Back and forth they went a few times but they settled in on 5 cents per chair.  There are only 6 chairs so they were looking at 30 cents each.  Heck, with that sort of deal, I could be persuaded to pay!  I gave them each a buck for the humor.  Well, 70 cents for the humor and 30 cents for the work!