anyhow, the 'secret aunt stuff' that we talked about back in february concerned quarters -- the most treasured possession of my childhood, and now of sophia's. when i was little i stole them from every place imaginable: my grandma's purse, my dad's change dish, my mom's car, my sister's stashes. it was cute though, because i was little and they knew i was stealing from them.
quarters in my family are called 'k-mart quarters' because all we wanted to with our weighty coins was pay to ride the mechanical pony outside of k-mart. it was the highlight of every shopping trip, and to this day i still hoard quarters. you can have your dimes and nickels, sir, and your flimsy paper money. quarters are life.
the torch has now been passed to a new generation of quarter hoarders, and my poph needed my help. you see, every friday poph gets to buy pink milk for her lunch. i'm not sure what the exact setup is, but it sounds like the kids can use either cash or put things on an account at the school cafeteria. well, it took more than half the school year for sophia to figure out that she could tell them to put something on her account and she could acquire whatever treat she wanted without paying for it. one particular wednesday she got some ice cream, and that afternoon my sister got an automated phone call from the school telling her to pay up.
now, i'm not one to judge someone's parenting style, but i do have to say that i was thoroughly disappointed with the way my sister handled this situation. when sophia came home from school that day, her mother told her that since she had a treat on wednesday, she couldn't get her pink milk on friday.
ex-squeeze me?
if there is one thing we don't do in my family, it's deny anyone food. it. is. not. done.
i heard this news and my heart dropped, and that is why i called my first-born niece and had a secret conversation with her. we discussed and plotted and decided that i would send her some k-mart quarters (now called 'coinies') so that she could buy pink milk whenever she ding-dong wanted. take that, mom!
within a week her package was in the mail -- $10 worth of brand-spankin' new quarters, and a pink pig i tied a ribbon around and threw in the box (with pink packing peanuts, no less) as an after thought. besides pink milk, poph's other academic desire was to be the pig in the kindergarten play (after those you-know-whats cast someone else as the farmers wife sohelpmeiwillhurtsomeone).
on the day the package arrived i called to be privy to the opening. she was elated, my sister was shocked, pink milk was vindicated. poph and i chatted briefly then she handed the phone to pink-milk-enemy-number-one and ran off in a tizzy.
when i was about to hang up, sarah prompted a hyper poph to say thank you for the package. i heard a still-elated voice in the background shout, 'thank you for the coinies auntie bekah...BUT I LIKE THE PIG THE BEST!!!'
well, at least she was happy. i guess that's all that matters.
5 comments:
you are the best aunt in the whole wide world.
I agree! The. BEST. Aunt. Evah. I love the pig most too :); she is so So SO cute!
you are such a good aunt! your goodness makes me realize how much of a slacker aunt i am!
Oh, she does love her pig and her coinies. Shiny bright coinies. She actually wont use them for her milk because they're too pretty. And the pretty tin they came in. They're all being displayed on her dresser with her beloved My Little Ponies still.
I love the pig, too! What a super fun package. Every child needs an aunt like you.
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