I Mean It, Mom. Do NOT Get The Kindle…She Said She wants The iPad!!
Can someone tell me what ever happened to “Pin the Tail on the Donkey?” And while we’re at it, can someone also tell me what happened to ice cream and cake, and simple but thoughtful gifts? Is it me or does $500 seem kinda steep for a birthday gift for a 12 year old classmate-type kid. Not your favorite niece or nephew. Just “ole what’s- his-name.” Well, hold onto your money clips, fellow Piedmonters because that’s where we’re headed. It’s all a little hard for me to fathom because I’ve always been of the mind that there could be no better birthday gift for a child of any age than a batch of homemade cookies or a pasta shell picture frame with me and the birthday boy/gal adorning said frame…classic. Or, how about a lanyard bracelet or key chain that you stayed up until midnight four nights in row twisting and twirling into just the right pattern? No more. Thought and financial discipline seem to be a thing of the past. The industry standard has now become hiring the Hummer limo to take the birthday girl and 20 of her very best friends for mani-pedis, a no-limit Nordstrom shopping spree, dinner at Gary Danko and then wind it down with a 2 hour Zeppelin ride over the Bay? Too much? Hold on. There’s more. It seems these little pre- pubescent bastards are also running down to the Apple store and buying iPads and the latest hand-held devices for their “friends.” That’s right, stealing their parent’s car keys and credit cards right out of their wallets and driving themselves to the Apple store! Yes, 12 and 13 years olds driving to the Apple store!! Oh…wait a minute. This just in…seems my info was a little off base. I’m now told that it’s actually the parents of the 12 and 13 year olds who are driving to the Apple store and using their very own credit cards to purchase the iPads for the casual-friend birthday gift. Oops..my mistake. Well, I don’t know about you but I’m feeling a heck of a lot better knowing that it’s the parents and not the children behaving like anxious, insecure twits desperately hoping to buy their way to the top of the social “in-crowd” ladder. After all, if the kids were behaving like this I’d say we need to add to the required 7th grade reading list the old standard, Emily Post’s Book of Etiquette, for a review of the guidelines for appropriate gift giving. We might also have had to consider sending them to some sort of Family Values Summer Day Camp or a Warren Buffet’s The Little Book of Value Investing For 7th Graders Camp. Anyway, with the hefty workload they already have at PMS, adding these extra activities could wreak havoc. So…Phewf!! What a relief! Soooo glad it’s the parents and not the kids. I mean, at least with the parents they understand the potential for financial ruin that can come from overspending and the importance of teaching their children substance over showy superficiality. They learned all about it in the Why Isn’t My 16 Year Old Happy With Their New Mercedes S-Class support group. But, if they know all that, why is this sort of thing happening? Maybe it’s because it’s just so darned much fun. So, now what? Geez… they’ll probably have to do something like, I dunno, be responsible. Uuggh. Don’t you hate it when that happens??
