Scoring Dad Points

"Cars and Popcorn." Two great things that go great together. Wait. What? Cars and coffee, sure, but cars and popcorn are a terrible combination. Just ask any parent who has handed a bag of popcorn to his four year old in the back seat. Maybe, maybe at a drive-in theater, but those basically don't exist anymore. So, why on earth is my daughter directing traffic to "Cars and Popcorn?" Well, it all comes down to "Dad Points."

Being a stay-at-home dad, I have to find ways to perk life up a bit for the kids, and for me. It can't all be laundry, cooking, and Pokemon. I call these little perks "Dad Points." Chances to make the mundane just a little more fun (and to hopefully win a little compliance from the kids). A few examples of scoring dad points are...

Taking three kids in a sports car to get milk and mayonnaise...

...teaching Mimi about logic in coding using her own little computer...

...building a massive train set that contains another train set that contains a gas station as a means of simply cleaning up all the train track on the floor...

...and, of course, taking the kids to Cars and Coffee so Mama can rest.

These are all great ways to score some dad points while getting some important errands, cleaning, or teaching done (and ways to pad out a blog post because I haven't taken many pictures lately). This past weekend was going to need some serious dad points. Well beyond the norm. Not only was Mama on call, she was feeling a bit ill. The kids and I would need to keep the house clean (particularly the counters), get through all our meals, let Mama rest, and have a bit of fun. On Saturday, with Mimi off at Japanese school, Mari and Kuri needed to get to Marinwood park to burn off some energy (and stop destroying the house).

 

Mama and Mimi back home, it was time for Sumie to get a little rest and for the rest of us to start scheming for Sunday. We'd have a whole day together, just the four of us, and we needed to be prepared. As I cooked, and Mari wrote all over the couch, Kuri and Mimi hatched a plan. If I helped them enact it the following day, I'd definitely score some dad points.

Kuri had been fascinated with the idea of holding some kind of sale in front of our house for some time. The problem was, though, he wasn't interested in selling lemonade. He wanted something more interesting, more boy, more him. Soon, he found his hook: cars. He carefully sorted through his (now considerable) collection of Hot Wheel and Tomica cars and came up with 24 vehicles he would be willing to part with. The selection complete, Kuri looked them over and said, "I hope some other boys will like these."

Sunday morning, Mimi insisted that we needed something else to pad out our sale. We headed over to the pantry and looked up and down. Ah, popcorn! We'll sell cups of popcorn! We spent the rest of the morning drafting signs for our sale, collecting change, and figuring out the pricing: 50 cents per car and 50 cents for a cup of popcorn. Tax free, of course.

Around 11:00 I put Mari down for her nap and Mimi, Kuri and I moved our "store" out to the driveway. Kuri would handle the car sales and Mimi, she was the popcorn scooper.

The first 30 minutes were rough. Not a single person walked by and not a single car stopped. Kuri was getting discouraged. Why weren't people coming to his sale? Didn't anyone want his cars? Wasn't anyone hungry for popcorn?

The kids noticed that most of the cars they saw come down the street were turning at the corner just below our house, sadly missing our sale. The direct-to-consumer shouting of "Cars and Popcorn," though tremendously loud (and occasionally aggressive), simply wasn't working. Mimi decided we need a motion sign. Papa went in and drafted one. Mimi then ran down to the corner to direct traffic while Kuri manned the store.

Business picked up. Papa would eventually pop three more bags of popcorn. One of these was eaten entirely by Mari, who had woken from her nap and did not seem to understand the concept of selling. Just eating. Kuri managed to sell four cars, but sadly, not to any little boys. He wisely summed up the strategy for our next sale, "Papa, we need more boys to come."

And, just in case the sale wouldn't score enough dad points, while it was going on, I smoked two racks of ribs.

The sale lasted about three hours and closed as the wind began to pick up, blowing popcorn everywhere. We all ended up having a great time. And it was a great way to pick up some dad points. Not quite as great as driving Mimi across the Golden Gate in the Porsche with the top off, but still, pretty damned good.