Wingardium Levioso

Since he's only seventeen, wouldn't this be child pornography?

Onto other things that don't make me feel like a pedophile... Windows Vista just came out and with it, the entire world has just gone insane. Don't even bother trying to buy it without also buying more ram. Just don't. In fact, make my world a better place by just skipping it altogether. I mean really, who the fuck cares? Why would you care so much about an operating system to go totally beserk and rush to a store for it? Ugh, I hate people. It's not even a game, so you know I have no use for it.

I am now paying my son an allowance. Unlike other parents who pay their kids to do stuff, I am paying him to be a little boy. Yes, I am paying him to NOT work. This is how this all came down:

Awhile back, we were with a group of bikers out doing our thing. Someone gave my son a huge bag of granola bars. Instead of eating them all up like any normal child, he somehow got the huge group of bikers to stand in line to pay a dollar for a granola bar. They were hungry and he was feeding them, he said. I shut his operation down. This came after the huge incident at a grocery store where he and the manager got into a dispute over child labor laws. Basically, my son wanted to work there and the manager refused. It was a huge blow-up, you know, the kind where I clamp my hand over my son's mouth and ever so gently guide him out the door, while simultaneously hanging my head in shame.

He wants to earn money, so he can buy himself a game. A noble thing, for sure, he just doesn't really understand the ethics behind "earning" money. I have an eight year old con artist. He will ask the elderly if they want ice removed from their vehicles, then with an impish grin, proceed to charge them fifty cents. No. No. No. I shut him down, again. If you're going to do a good deed, then just do it. Don't ask to be paid.

So I set this up: He will help around the house, or help his uncle when asked, but he will NOT try anymore marketing schemes or con jobs on people. For this, he gets two dollars a week. And I get to sleep soundly at night.