no cake please, just money

The boys spent the day with their dad today while I working, and they seemed to have a good time. It got off to a little bit of a rocky start when I called home mid-morning and found them still there.

"Why hasn't dad picked you up? He was supposed to be there an hour ago," I said.


"It's the time change," answered Surfer Dude. "He's late because today is the day we change our clocks."


"No, it isn't," I said. "That's next week. Nothing has changed today time wise. I would have known it when I showed up for work at the wrong time."


"Oh," said Surfer Dude. "Well, that's what dad thought."


All righty then.


And for some reason, I've had this mental image stuck in my head all day after that.


My half-brother in Michigan explaining to me how he turned one birthday a year into a never ending cash cow.


"It's easy," he said. "Every couple of weeks you go up to dad and tell him that he forgot your birthday. He'll pull out his wallet, hand you a fifty and tell you to go buy yourself something nice. It never fails."


There's no comparing the two in terms of dad-style. My dad was always more comfortable throwing money at you and hoping you would go away. It worked pretty well. I went away, all right. And got a really warped perception of money in the process. The FX isn't like this, and wouldn't be even if he had scads of money to toss around. But it's the little details that tend to trip them both up. (Past tense in my dad's case, since he hasn't been around to pass out fifties for six years).


And what in the world made me make that particular association?