There comes a time when it’s too late to tell people how you feel.
There will come a day when the person you mean to talk to won’t be there. Don’t wait for that day.
“There’s always tomorrow” isn’t always true.
Public Service Announcement: Anger, Children, and Cars
If, in the course of a basic morning, your three-year-old decides that you need to pick out her clothes, even though she’s been handling that every day for months, don’t be surprised if she rejects your first three choices. She’s just being lazy.
If, after you’ve settled on clothes, you tell her to pick out some socks, expect the same behavior. She’ll lie on the living room floor saying “You pick them out” for 20 minutes, only to throw a fit if you don’t pick the ones with fairies. At this point, it’s okay to yell at her. Really.
When she tears them off and throws them across the room, you don’t even have to be gentle when you put them back on and strap her shoes down to keep her socks on.
Then, when you’re walking across the yard, and she refuses because she’s mad, it is again okay to hold her hand to guide assist drag her to the car, but it works best if you are strong enough to keep her suspended above the ground when she tries to sit down to stop you.
Of course, when you get to the car, she’s going to run back to the front door because she can walk by herself.
Literally throwing her into the car at this point isn’t okay. Tempting, but not okay.
As the man said, I told you that so I could tell you this:
It would seem, now, that it would be a good idea to flip the child latch on the door to keep the contrary little brat from escaping while you circle the car to the driver’s door, or worse, slow down for a stop sign. It is a good idea.
The thing to remember is that, in your anger, when the world has gone red and you are cheering on the biological traits that make it nearly impossible to hurt your children, it is easy to stick the screwdriver in the wrong slot in the door and jam your door latch.
When that happens your door won’t close. Your little monster won’t stop aggravating you, and the child who has chosen to play the role of little angel this morning will start getting crabby about the wait. That doesn’t help.
After you throw the kids in the spare car–the car which doesn’t have air conditioning on the hottest day of the year, so far–and get the brats to daycare, the internet can show you what does help.
If, when you close your car door, it bounces back open because the latch is jammed, no amount of poking at it with a screwdriver will fix it. You’ll bleed for no good reason. Grab the door handle and hold it in the open position. Then, when you poke the latch with a screwdriver, it will pop into the correct position with very little effort.
It’s amazing what a door that closes will do for your morning.
Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-06-05
- Working on my day off and watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. #
- Sushi-coma time. #
- To all the vets who have given their lives to make our way of life possible: Thank you. #
- RT @jeffrosecfp: While you're grilling out tomorrow, REMEMBER what the day is really for http://bit.ly/abE4ms #neverforget #
- Once again, taps and guns keep me from staying dry-eyed. #
- RT @bargainr: Live in an urban area & still use a Back Porch Compost Tumbler to fertilize your garden (via @diyNatural) http://bit.ly/9sQFCC #
- RT @Matt_SF: RT @thegoodhuman President Obama quietly lifted a brief ban on drilling in shallow water last week. http://bit.ly/caDELy #
- Thundercats is coming back! #
- In real life, vampires only sparkle when they are on fire. -Larry Correia #
- Wife found a kitten abandoned in a taped-shut box. Welcome Cat #5 #
Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-05-17
- @Elle_CM Natalie's raid looked like it was filmed with a strobe light. Lame CGI in reply to Elle_CM #
- I want to get a toto portable bidet and a roomba. Combine them and I'll have outsourced some of the least tasteful parts of my day. #
- RT @freefrombroke: RT @moneybeagle: New Blog Post: Money Hacks Carnival #115 http://goo.gl/fb/AqhWf #
- TED.com: The neurons that shaped civilization. http://su.pr/2Qv4Ay #
- Last night, fell in the driveway: twisted ankle and skinned knee. Today, fell down the stairs: bruise makes sitting hurt. Bad morning. #
- RT @FrugalDad: And to moms, please be more selective about the creeps you let around your child. Takes a special guy to be a dad to another' #
- First Rule of Blogging: Don't let real life get in the way. Epic fail 2 Fridays in a row. But the garage sale is going well. #
Delayed Gratification, Take II
How much would you pay for a kiss from the world’s sexiest celebrity?
That was the focus of a recent study that I can’t find today. There is no celebrity waiting in the wings to deliver the drool, and the study doesn’t name which celebrity it is. That’s an exercise for the reader.
This was a study into how we value nice things.
The fascinating part of the study is that people would be willing to pay more to get the kiss in 3 days than they would to get the tongue slipped immediately.
Anticipation adds value.
Instant gratification actually causes us to devalue the object of our desire.
This goes well beyond “Will you respect me in the morning?”
The last time I talked about delayed gratification, it was in the context of my kids. That still holds true. Kids don’t value the things that are handed to them.
The surprising–and disturbing–bit is that adults don’t, either. If I run out to the store to buy an iPad the first day I see one, I won’t care about it nearly as much as if I spend a week or two agonizing over the decision.
The delay alone adds to the perceived value. The agony turns the perceived value into gold.
If I spend a month searching for the perfect car, the thrill of the successful hunt adds less value than the time it took to do the hunting.
Here’s my frugal tip for today: Delay your purchases. While it may not actually save you any money, you will feel like you got a much better deal if you wait a few days for something you really want.
Optimized to Go, Part 1
Last weekend, we held a garage sale at my mother-in-law’s house. It was technically an estate sale, but we treated it exactly as a garage sale.
A week before we started, a friend’s mother came to buy all of the blankets and most of the dishes, pots, and non-sharp utensils so she could donate them all to a shelter she works with. She took at least 3 dozen comforters and blankets away.
Even after that truckload, we started with two double rows of tables through the living room and dining room. The tops of the tables were as absolutely full as we could get them, and the floor under the tables was also used for displaying merchandise.
Have you ever had to display 75 brand-new pairs of shoes in a minimal about of space? They claimed about 16 feet of under-table space all by themselves. Thankfully, the blankets weren’t there anymore.
We also had half of the driveway full of furniture, toys, and tools.
We had a lot of stuff.
Now, most people hold a sale to make some money. Not us. We held a sale to let other people pay us for the privilege of hauling away our crap. As such, it was all priced to move. The most expensive thing we sold was about $20, but I can’t remember what that was. Most things went for somewhere between 25 cents and $1.
At those prices, we sold at least 2000 items. That isn’t a typo. We ended the day with $1325. After taking out the initial seed cash, lunches we bought for the people helping us, and dinner we bought one night, we had a profit of $975.
At 25 cents per item.
We optimized to sell instead of optimizing for profit. At the end of a long summer of cleaning out a hoarding house, it all needed to go.
In the next part, I’ll explain exactly how we made it work.
