Sunday Haiku: Lawn Party Ploy that Would Work

But Mama! I don't
Need to go potty. Child, hush!
Let's check out their house.

Annoying Intrusion

I find the way grocery stores track consumer behavior and attempt to manipulate it pretty interesting. The most obvious manipulation - cash register coupons - range from the intuitive to the head-scratching. How do they decide what to incent me to buy based on what I've bought up to now? For example, I discovered recently that spending $100 at my regular store when I don't usually spend that much triggers a coupon at the cash register for a free gallon of milk on my next visit. On other trips, I get a coupon and think they're depending on a buggy algorithm.

On my last trip, though, when I looked at what the cashier handed me, I found something annoying. Rather than a register coupon lagniappe, she handed me an advertisement. For Kleenex with some kind of space-age polymer in them. Already disgusted with receipts as long as my arm (and filled with useless messaging), do I now have to figure out what to do with an advertisement? I'm managing groceries and usually one or more children; the last thing I want to do at that moment is think about getting that slip of paper home to my recycling bin. By teaching me that I should expect something of value - a relevant coupon - they have also trained me to look closely and consider this advertisement. That Pavlovian manipulation irks me the most.

If you share my dismay at this intrusion, I propose a little consumer civil disobedience: leave the ad at the register. Make it the store's problem. Just think if everybody did it - cashiers awash in ads for Kleenex and Depends.

A love (?) note

Charlie asked me this morning to pack a granola bar in his lunch on Friday. Knowing my memory, I told him I was happy to do that but that he'd have to remind me. Also knowing my memory, he disappeared downstairs to his art table.

He reappeared with this note. Who do you love? Chocolate swirl granola bars, that's who.

After sweating Charlie's spelling through K-2, I'm so pleased that when he needs to lobby for a specific school lunch dessert in 3rd grade, he spells everything correctly. He's also very precise about the terms of the agreement he sets out for us. Hmmm, could this child's mother be an attorney? Finally, in case the message doesn't hit all the way home, we have the ransom-note-style signature and the Mike Wazowski sticker.

There is no chance that I will forget what to pack in Charlie's lunch on Friday.

Attempting the Shoeless House

Our new house has a lot more hardwood floors than our old house. After the move and a few weeks here, we realized going shoeless might be our only chance to keep the floors anywhere near clean.

We would have attempted this in our old house except that we had no proper entry hall. The front door plunked you in the living room, and the back door entered into the micro-kitchen. Stopping to take off our shoes - especially as a family of four - never felt practical or possible.

Now we have the dream entry hall but find that we need something else: discipline. I find it relatively easy some of the time to stop and deshoe, but I'm stymied by a few things.

• What do I do when I need to run out the back door to throw something away or dump the compost? Stopping to put my outside shoes on seems like too big a deterrent to a short, necessary trip.
• In general, what do I do about going out the back door when we put the shoe rack in the front hall? Do I put my shoes on up front? If I do that, I'm tracking the dirt to the back door.
• What do we do about guests? Westerners who haven't made this choice in their own homes don't necessarily adjust well. I know; I've done the "Oh, should I take off my shoes?" routine as a guest in other people's houses. Many people say not to worry about it. But then what? You have to clean because you didn't tell your friends to deshoe?
• And the doozie in my life: what the heck do we do when we've gotten out to the car and then realize we've forgotten something inside? Stop and deshoe when we're already late and harried. Because we always seem to be late and harried.
  

I'm probably turning something reasonably simple - take off your shoes except when circumstances make that difficult - and making it more doctrinaire and principled than it need be. That would be like me.

I'm interested in a little dialog and feedback on this issue from those who've succeeded at the transition and those who have failed/given up.

Dear Indugu

We know our eight-year-old, and we know he's a sports nut. Still, we didn't anticipate the direction he would take the assignment "make a card for our sponsor child in Africa". After decorating the front and back of the card with images of a football and baseball player, he really gathered steam when writing out the inside. (BTW, apparently baseball players have enormous left hands.)

I'm sure that Bernald, a five-year-old in Zambia will get a lot out of this, after the capable translator figures out the right idiom for "sucker-punched".

I hope most of all that Bernald and his Zambian family and friends don't believe that all Americans take pre-season football games this seriously.

We all signed the card, even Teddy (just turned 4), who gets all of the letters in his name right, although they appear in a very creative order and some repeat. Practice makes perfect.

Let me know if you need translation of the sentiments being expressed across the Atlantic.

Sunday Haiku: Bigger House Bonus

When you knocked on the
downstairs bathroom door, I said
"Use the upstairs". Bam.

Sunday Haiku: Kid Condiments

I love you even
though you put ketchup on chick-
en teriyaki

Editor's note: I know this breaks International Haiku Rules. I abide by Dutch Haiku Rules, which are less strict.

Flickr Photo: a2gemma