We Work Hard for the Money

I took the kids to the mall today to buy mommy's Mother's Day present. I know... I put stuff off. Anyway - as we were standing by the fountain, throwing our change into the pool, some dude comes up to me with a clip board and says, "Yo - you wanna make $20 per kid, cash." Usually I'm very adept at ignoring people at the mall, but this peaked my curiosity.

Me: How?

Dude: I work for a child research company and we need children between ages 3 1/2 years and 4 years old. Do they fit the criteria?

Me: As a matter of fact, they do. What would they have to do?

Dude: Just play with a lighter for a few minutes to see if they can figure out the child safety lock.

Me: (doing the math and weighing that against my parenting morals) $80? Really? Just to play with a lighter for a few minutes?

Dude: Yeah - but the lighters don't have butane in them and can't light. We just need to see if they can make it click.

Me: Dude - sign us up. Where do we go?

We proceeded to follow the dude upstairs to this little Research Center in the mall. Did anyone else know that these places existed?? I could quit my job at this rate! We went in, the kids sat down at a little table and the dude doled out the lighters while I filled out some paperwork. By the time I was done filling in all of the forms, they were handing me $80 and none of the kids were able to make the lighter work.

Woo hoo! Off to the Toy Store!

A Mall in Philadelphia

I took the boys to the mall today in an attempt to purchase some Penguin's gear. I'm not sure why I put myself through these things.

For you new readers - I live in Philadelphia, the home of the Philadelphia Flyers who will be playing the Pens in the upcoming Eastern Conference Championship. Philadelphia sports fans have been known to have a little... mmm... how should I put it... chip on their shoulder. I prefer to call them trashy, unintelligent, fanatics who have no real knowledge of the teams that the follow or the games that they watch... but that may be a slight generalization.

Anyway - while I'm standing in line with my gear some jagoff says to me, "I wouldn't dress your kids in those clothes if you want them to live." I responded with my normal nod and a smile. But after thinking about it I should have said,

"Yo jagoff... why don't you go dahn to the Orange Julius and pour some of that orange crap all over yourself in the "name of the Philadelphia Flyers." Be sure to yell and scream like someone in the world gives two shits what you think about hockey and then go bitch and moan somewhere about the Eagles inability to put a decent team on the field. When your done doing that - come back here and I'll tell you what it's like to win 5 Super Bowls and 2 Stanley Cups!"

These responses tend to come to me after the fact, though.