On Saturday, Middlebrow and Son attended the Avenues Street Fair and Son entered a drawing for a Spiderman Computer. When they got home, he told me all about it and asked when the lady was going to call about the "pecuter." He was sure, certain!, that he was going to win. In his view, all he had to do was fill out the paper and the prize was his.
About 8 o'clock that night, the phone rang. It was the woman from the Avenues street fair. Son had won the computer! She asked to talk to him, and after he got off the phone, he said, "See Mom? I told you I was going to win!" I informed him that it is not usual to win the first and only drawing you had ever entered. I, myself, have only ever won one drawing, for a sweatsuit, in 7th grade after I had participated in a Walkathon.
The nice couple brought the computer over, and after I freed it from its packaging, Son played with it. He now calls it his "Spiderman Laptop." It has letters in alphabetical order and different games, such as identifying rhymes and finding the missing letter in words. It took awhile, but I finally got him to close the laptop and put it away.
When I tucked him into bed, he said, "It's a new life. It's my fourth life, because I'm four. And when I'm five, I'll have a fifth life. If I get something new."
So begins Son's new life. He's learned an important lesson: milestones in life are marked by the acquistion of new consumer goods. Long Live the Spiderman Laptop!
8 comments:
Way to go son! I won a box of chocolates at the Avenues Street Fair once and even though I failed to pick them up, I knew the thrill that a sudden gift of wealth can give. It does kind of make life seem all shiny and new.
Unbelievable! Sounds like he's got the gambling gene...just wait until he sees the World Series of Poker and starts wanting to play.
Hopefully it won't be his last win. I won a prize when I was 5 from Lighthouse 20, this local UHF show that no one who grew up in Utah remembers except for me (I swear it wasn't a fantasy), but I have never won anything since. Not a damn thing.
I can't believe he won--that's a hoot but I wouldn't want to be you the next time he enters a contest.
I also love "pecuter." My oldest son called computers "puters" for several years. It must be a tough word.
Lighthouse 20????
I remember Lighthouse 20, lis. It was a pale imitation of Hotel Balderdash. Pale, I say. Positively moribund in comparison. I distrusted the woman who hosted too.
There was no woman hosting Lighthouse 20. It was a pirate! And he had a big treasure chest, from which he would draw out the name of the day's winner. If there was a woman, she totally paled in comparison to the pirate.
Lis,
When I was young enough to watch Lighthouse 20 the pirate was a woman.
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