Monday, December 20, 2004

Special Discount Price

We opened Christmas gifts with my mom last night, as this year we're trying to spread out Eli's opening of gifts over several days. Last year, he opened everything up on the same day, and he was like that little monkey in the psychology experiment who kept pushing the button for more cocaine until he starved to death. 3.4 was so wired from opening up all his presents at once that I thought his head was going to explode.

One of the presents Mom got him was a little toy cash register. It's amazing how clever these toys are now--it has a little optical scanner that senses something crossing its path and rings up an imaginary price, plus there's a credit card slot that has the sound of a modem dialing out when the slot is used.

I don't think the grocery store that tries to use this register is going to be in business for very long, though. I scanned some of the play money and was able to get twenty dollars for the 'special discount price' of fifteen cents. Plus I paid for sixty-five dollars worth of groceries by sliding a plastic fried egg through the credit card slot. With those kind of weak controls in place, I'm hoping I can put some Christmas gifts on that fried egg before anyone is the wiser.

We were hoping that this would teach Eli 3.4 a few basics about money. Tonight, after he played with the register for about twenty minutes, he gathered up all the paper play money and shouted "I HAVE SIXTEEN DOLLARS! I AM IN CHARGE! CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?"

Sixteen dollars and a fried egg can take a man a long way these days.

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