I Heart Stickers

You know that a sticker control policy is needed when there are so many that I don't even notice them stuck to me.  I'm sure that I have gone to work or the store with various stickers (mostly from the alphabet) stuck to my pants, shoes, or ears.  This one was a nice surprise when I went to wash my hands before lunch.  It may have been there all morning.

Things That Go Oink in the Night

We have a couple LED flashlight key chains whose sole purposes are to keep the kids entertained on occasion.  For example, when the 300+ toys in their playroom aren't enough, a $1 key chain can do the trick.  One is a pig and another is a frog.  They each emit a twice repeated animal sound and shine a bright blue LED light.  The pig's light is emitted through it's nostrils and the frog's through it's mouth.

We keep our pigchain and frogchain in a kitchen drawer where we also keep silverware. We  sometimes place our children's toys near sharp objects.  This works for us because the toys divert their attention away from the hazardous utensils.  I'll admit that it doesn't always work; the strategy is flawed.

A couple weeks ago, the button on the pigchain got stuck which resulted in a continuous oink. The robotic "oink oinks" were repeated at a rate of one per second.

Oink oink

Oink oink

Oink oink

As any father and loving husband would, I tried for an unreasonable amount of time to un-stick the button.  My efforts were to no avail.  Therefore, I did the next best thing.  I simply placed the pork next to a fork and closed the drawer.  

By now, the kids had already forgotten about the pig.  But, my wife and I were haunted by the quiet and muffled sound of the pig in the kitchen drawer.

Oink oink

Oink oink

Oink oink

"Are you just going to leave it in there?" asked my wife.

"He'll stop oinking eventually," I replied morbidly.

Later that evening as we cleaned up the kitchen, we could still hear him whenever we approached the silverware drawer.  As I headed towards the stairs for the night, I was greeted as I am every night by my son's talking number puzzle.  It seems that toys are talking to me constantly and without reason.  This particular puzzle usually speaks when the lights go on or off.  On this particular night, lights out prompted a "Nine" which I remember vividly for it was also the time on the clock.  The talking puzzle tends to get personal with a loud "Zero" when I'm feeling overly critical of myself.

The next morning, the search for a spoon to stir my coffee also reminded me of our dying pigchain.  He was still oinking, but much quieter now and most likely feeling defeated.  I was sad, but needed coffee and moved on.

Since then, the pig has been quietly laying in the drawer.  That is, until yesterday when my son rediscovered him.  And to our amazement, his little fingers brought the pig back to life!  In reality, the "little pig that could" had a bit more oink left after all.  The kids were pleased for another 10 minutes until the oink was gone once more.  Back in the drawer, the pig was forgotten again.

This morning, I pressed the pig's button one last time to discover that the pig had lost his oink forever. 

RIP Pigchain.

We'll miss you.

At least until the coffee is done brewing.

Purple Cat Stickers

During my lunch break today, I walked across the street to the MIT bookstore. Any place with MIT students and the books they read should approximate the center of the intellectual universe. Today's experience casted doubt on this assumption.

With a specific item in mind, I wandered the aisles on the ground floor before my search led me to the basement level. When I couldn't find it there either, I approached the cashier, a disheveled college-aged male staring at his hands until he noticed me.

"Do you sell stickers? For kids?" I asked.

The young man laughed and promptly produced a sheet of stickers from behind the counter. The sheet had purple cats on it. "They're free. It's a promotion."

I wasn't sure how to respond appropriately. "Are you advertising that you have a large surplus of purple cats for sale?"

"Nope. Just a large surplus of purple cat stickers. We're trying to get rid of them."

"So, you are promoting them by giving them away?"

"Yep. Pretty creative marketing strategy, huh?"

I was losing patience.

"I'm looking for letter stickers."

"Do you mean stamps?"

"No, not that kind of letter. The alphabet. They're a reward for potty training."

He stared at me blankly without saying anything.

"For my son," I explained, attempting to refocus him. "He's potty training and it's an incentive that works for him."

Illustrating size with exaggerated hand gestures, he asked "Do you want small letter stickers? Or large ones?"

"I want purple cat sized ones."

"I'm sorry, but we don't sell letter stickers."

"Then why did you ask me what size?"

"I dunno. Just curious."

I rode the elevator back up to the ground floor. As I neared the exit, I discovered a gift section that I didn't notice earlier. I quickly found refrigerator magnets with the alphabet. They stick. They have letters on them. Sold.

I paid for the magnets at the nearest register. I was happy to have an interaction with a different customer service representative. By choice, we barely spoke and I was on my way in a few moments.

When I got home this evening, my wife asked me about the sticker hunt.

"No luck with the alphabet stickers. Only magnets," I declared as I tossed the bag onto the kitchen island.

She peeked inside and smiled.

"You bought purple cat stickers?"

Realizing that the cashier must have tossed them into the bag with the receipt, I could do nothing but tell the truth.

"It was a promotion."