Monday, March 06, 2006
A day at West Edmonton Mall...with no wallet.
Not too long ago, I had promised Mackenzie and Parker that I would take them to West Edmonton Mall to go on the rides and such. Now if you are wondering what would be the best way to screw up an excursion like this, it would be to arrive at the mall and realize you have forgotten your wallet at home. I was in a bad spot because there was no way they were going to accept a “we have to go home because I have no money” story.
Should you ever find yourself in this predicament, here are some of the ways I made a bad situation acceptable.
Video games are an excellent source of deception. They are constantly playing the demo of the game which is quite easy to convince a six and four year old that they are actually playing. After faking putting in some loonies, I threw them up on the video motorcycle game and started swinging the motorcycles back and forth myself. I threw in some good motorcycle sounds for good measure.
Next, it was off to the Whack a Mole game. Now who needs the mole when the whacking device is totally at our disposal? Fake loonie deposit again, and start yelling there he is! In all of the excitement of trying to whack a mole, they lose sight of the fact that the mole is not actually popping up. “Whoa, you just missed him!” I would exclaim. They even fought over whose turn it was next.
The trick was to keep the momentum going. “WOW! Look at that roller coaster go! When you guys are bigger (and I have some money), I’ll take you on it.” I said with extreme excitement. “Should we watch the drop of doom again?!?” I asked. “Yah! Cool dad, let’s watch it again.” they would shout back.
As our fake of a fun day came to a close, I ended it with “Oh boy am I thirsty. WHO WANTS WATER?!?!?!”
Thankfully, without any money exchanging hands (literally) they bought what I was selling and we had a great day. Kids are the best.
Should you ever find yourself in this predicament, here are some of the ways I made a bad situation acceptable.
Video games are an excellent source of deception. They are constantly playing the demo of the game which is quite easy to convince a six and four year old that they are actually playing. After faking putting in some loonies, I threw them up on the video motorcycle game and started swinging the motorcycles back and forth myself. I threw in some good motorcycle sounds for good measure.
Next, it was off to the Whack a Mole game. Now who needs the mole when the whacking device is totally at our disposal? Fake loonie deposit again, and start yelling there he is! In all of the excitement of trying to whack a mole, they lose sight of the fact that the mole is not actually popping up. “Whoa, you just missed him!” I would exclaim. They even fought over whose turn it was next.
The trick was to keep the momentum going. “WOW! Look at that roller coaster go! When you guys are bigger (and I have some money), I’ll take you on it.” I said with extreme excitement. “Should we watch the drop of doom again?!?” I asked. “Yah! Cool dad, let’s watch it again.” they would shout back.
As our fake of a fun day came to a close, I ended it with “Oh boy am I thirsty. WHO WANTS WATER?!?!?!”
Thankfully, without any money exchanging hands (literally) they bought what I was selling and we had a great day. Kids are the best.
