One Sucker Is Not Enough

It's the first day off from school (voting day) since Halloween.  My kids are begging to hang out at the mall.  My teenager wants to shop, but for the younger two, a day at the mall means playing on the plastic playscape and hiding out in the climber at Jeepers.   I give my two youngest a handful of tokens for games.  Most of the fun will be derived from winning long strips of green tickets.

After $5.00 worth of video games (lasting all of five minutes),  my daughter comes back with 35 tickets. My 7-year-old has 18.  I send both kids off to the redeemer.  To my dismay, they return with candy.    Five dollars worth of cash earned me, maybe 45 cents worth of candy – two Dum Dum suckers, one mini Starburst and a gumball.   Didn’t my kids just finish telling me that each had over 100 pieces of candy at home?   One hundred pieces of candy already!  And here, I am paying $5.00 for more.

I was a kid once, so I pretend not to let it get to me.  Holidays are special… Holidays are special.  Halloween comes once a year…once a year…once a year…

Apparently, 100 pieces of candy is not enough, neither is a single sucker.   I look over at my 7-year-old and find, not one, but two suckers hanging from his mouth at once.

SIGH