Using certain breeds of
dog to control sheep is well known, as is using horses to herd cattle. However
what I learned yesterday was that three euro packs of plastic sharks seem to
have the same magic hold over four year old boys.
It was supposedly meant to rain all day yesterday so in the morning we went into the local tourist trap that is Cambrils. The previous late night’s revival of Cold War hostilities with the little Russian was taking its toll, and Maxime was particularly tired and cranky. Every toy he saw he wanted and no amount of impeccable logic of, “let’s look around before making any form of investment”, was met with anything other than cries of anguish and disgust. Just before we left he was told in no uncertain terms by his mother that his behavior did not warrant any toy of any sort. In the very same breath she thrust a five euro note into my hand and whispered to me to quietly peel off the back of the ground and go off and buy the pack of five sharks. The possibility of sharks in the future was essential to getting Maxime into bed for his afternoon siesta. However Clever Dick had realized that there were only two packs left in the shop, so reassuring him about this not being an issue required some deeper economic theory as I sought not to give the game away (supply and demand, purchasing decisions and economies of scale etc.). I think I succeeded into boring him to sleep.
It was supposedly meant to rain all day yesterday so in the morning we went into the local tourist trap that is Cambrils. The previous late night’s revival of Cold War hostilities with the little Russian was taking its toll, and Maxime was particularly tired and cranky. Every toy he saw he wanted and no amount of impeccable logic of, “let’s look around before making any form of investment”, was met with anything other than cries of anguish and disgust. Just before we left he was told in no uncertain terms by his mother that his behavior did not warrant any toy of any sort. In the very same breath she thrust a five euro note into my hand and whispered to me to quietly peel off the back of the ground and go off and buy the pack of five sharks. The possibility of sharks in the future was essential to getting Maxime into bed for his afternoon siesta. However Clever Dick had realized that there were only two packs left in the shop, so reassuring him about this not being an issue required some deeper economic theory as I sought not to give the game away (supply and demand, purchasing decisions and economies of scale etc.). I think I succeeded into boring him to sleep.
Thankfully the siesta
did the trick and he was back to his well-behaved self for the rest of the day
and for our trip into the very interesting town of Tarragone. I was most taken
by the town and although we were there for the Sant Magi festival, we failed to
see the building of the famous human tower. Maxime was indeed on top form and
the potential delivery of a family of plastic sharks if children were well
behaved even enabled us to install him as “behavior policeman” for everyone in the
car on the way back to the resort. Genius by anyone’s standards.
As we tucked Maxime up
into bed that night I told him that we had been very happy with the improvement
in his behavior over the course of the day. He stated that the only reason he
was cranky in the morning was that we had prevented him from having a lie in till midday. Clearly
a son of his mother. I then asked him what he would choose as a reward for his
improved behavior. Thankfully he answered “the sharks”, and his eyes lit up
when I pulled out the packet of aquatic predators, although it did take him a
full 15 seconds to realize they were only five centimeters away from his head –
in the intervening moments he had been distracted by the sultry Spanish girl
doing the weather forecast on the TV in the background. Clearly a son of his
father. The “Thank you Dad” would have melted even the hardest of Soviet hearts,
and who knows, maybe 36 hours later he’ll even be brave enough to open the pack
and release the poor beasts…
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