Wednesday, June 16, 2004
Pushing the Right Buttons
Today Phil and I spent some time in town and wound up, as is usually the case, at the Fred Meyer on W. 11th (Eugene). The reason we usually wind up there is because they have a PlayLand, where a qualified employee will keep an eye on your child for up to an hour while you hang out in the store, allegedly shopping.
Coincidentally, there is a lottery scratch-off vending machine adjacent to the area where the PlayLand is, and since a) it has buttons to push and b) it's right next to the PlayLand, it's usually the first place Phil heads when I retrieve him. While he was pushing the buttons today it spit out two scratchers; one of them paid $1.
Now before I get hassled over teaching the boy to gamble, let me point out that 1) we put no money in the machine and 2) it's the buttons he's attracted to, not the contents of the machine. The machine could dispense booze or smokes and he'd be just as attracted to pushing the buttons.
So I got an hour of sanity and made a buck in the process. Good deal.
Mikesell
