Speak...When I Tell You To...

So after the meeting this morning, I take the kids on a walk to Chinatown and Little Italy. They seemed to have a nice time. I am feeling a bit under the weather, so I thought a low stress walk would be nice before we went back home.

On our walk, I saw a really nice watch. It was purple with little fake rhinestone looking things on the face. The guy told me $20. I said okay, but I am just looking. He went down to $10 and I told him I was gonna walk around some more, cuz the kiddies wanted to see the neighborhood...which was true.

We walked around some more and I gave them each 10 bucks to spend. I really shouldn't have, but I really like getting them stuff and this was a good a time as any to show them about buying things and what not.

So little girl, she gets herself a fan from Chinatown. The first person tells her $5. Little boy, he gets a painted gold cat that waves hi for $5. Little girl doesn't think the fan is worth $5...we go to another stand and the woman tels her $4. Little girl thinks that's cool and she looks through the fans. The woman shows her one really nice fan and tries to get her to buy it, but its $5...Little girl says no and keeps looking at the $4 fans. She figures she will have one more dollar to spend on stuff so she sticks with the $4 fans til she finds a nice Black and Orange one with flowers. The whole time she is looking, Little boy is telling her oooo and you should get this one and then going over to the umbrellas and telling her she should get one of those too...since she will have $6 because she is getting a $4 fan. Little girl isn't having it and let's him know he shouldn't rush her.

After she bought her fan, we went to buy her a gelato. She ha seen it when we went to Little Italy and since she had $6, she went to get something cool to eat. She spent $4 after much holding up of the line trying to figure out what she wanted. I had to inform her that she should always look at how much money she is handing someone and not rely on them to not make a mistake or just take the money and that's that.

So now its tme to go back. Little girl has her $2 and Little boy has his $5.

We stop by the watch guy who tries to fast talk me into buying 2 watches for $20. Well I only need one watch so I give him the $20 and he still tried to give me the 2 watch deal. I tell him I only need one watch.

Here is where things go wrong. On the way walking around, Little boy keeps pointing out the watch I was looking at in different stands we stopped at. I told him not to do that because I wanted to see how much it would cost at a diferent place...$15 roughly. When we get back to this dudes stand, Little boy is talking so much that I am not fully attentive to the hussle the dude is throwing my way. Little boy is letting the man know that if I get 2 watches, I wil only spend $20 and instead if the one watch I should get two. I am trying to be nice and not start telling Little boy to shut it and in that time the dude give me $5 back. I ask him about the $10 deal he was running me before and he let's me know that the others are selling for $15 and that that is a good deal. While he is telling me this, Little boy is still talking about the watch and the money, and I am still not focused. He says something to Little boy about wanting a watch and that he could have one too! So while I am standing there with a watch in one hand and a 5 in the other, Little boy goes over and looks at the watches the dude is pointing at. I am looking at Little boy and watching to see if he is going to tell this man he only has $5, or if he is going to keep going with this. So the man puts the watch on Little boy and Little boy asks how much it is with a prompt from Little girl. $10....because normally its $20. Little boy is looking at the watch and then looks at me. I tell him he only has $5, so I don't see how he's gonna get the watch. The man points out that I have $5. Soooo Little boy is looking at me and letting the dude talk for him. I ask him if he's getting the watch? He says yes. He takes out his $5 slowly and then I hand the man my $5...

So I spent my $20 and only got one watch for me...and Little boy spent $5 and got a watch for himself...

As we walked to the train station, Little boy all smiles about his watch, I informed him that I was not happy. We spent $25 on two watches when we could have gotten two for $20...if that's what I had wanted. His talking to this dude while I was trying to do business with him severely distracted me and that wasn't cool. I also informed him that after he got me paying $15 for MY watch, I kinda sat back to see what he would do about him not having enough for HIS watch. I told him I wasn't going to stop him because I wanted to see if his want for that watch was greater than what he knew was the right thing to do...

As we sat on the train, he informed me that he did have a delima at the time, but he pretty much really wanted the watch and that won over.

Well I figure that's easy to say when you are walking around with a brand new watch. So off came the watch and into my bag it went! So I now have two watched for $25 when I only wanted one watch for $10....sigh...

He was upset about it...especially when I took the watch away...so I explained "Speak when I tell you to and keep your mouth shut when I say so."