Tuesday, December 4, 2007

Not Fair!

Yesterday I spent the day tieing up some loose ends and running errands with Jackson. By the end of the day I was ready to have a little fun and didn't want to fix dinner myself. So, I decided it was time for a trip to Dave and Buster's. I figured Monday night would be slow and enable Jackson and I to play the games crowd free.

I was right. Only a handful of people were there so Jackson and I went to work on the skee ball, pop a shot, and any other game that caught his eye. After about 30 minutes our card was nearly spent so I convinced Jackson to play the horse racing game again. It was a game that could entertain 12 people, but you only needed two to start. The object was to roll billiard sized balls into three different holes marked "walk," "trot," and "gallop." Which hole you made it into determined how quickly you made it to the finish line. The nice thing about the game was the 50 tickets given out to the winner. Earlier we had cashed in since we were the only two players. As we sat down and started the game, I had that same outcome in mind.

Naturally, I had to help Jackson a bit. It's a tricky game for a 2 year old. So as I carelessly rolled my ball up the game board with little urgency, I would then turn and assist Jackson with his roll. After about 6 rolls, I heard "down the stretch they come" which signaled the race was nearing an end. But just a few seconds later, the bell rang and it was over. I thought I must have had some good last rolls and proceeded to look for my tickets to be spit out. But to my surprise, nothing.

Then, I turned and looked to the end of the game - some 20 feet away - and sitting at the first chair was a 12 year old boy who had been wandering the game floor since we had arrived. He was looking at me with a sly smile. Just before the game started, he had jumped on the first chair knowing he could cash in.

My first reaction was, "no way did he just do that." How could he take these 50 tickets away from my 2 year old son? Look at how many tickets he has! This can't be fair. I quickly burried my frustration and proceeded to the prize room with our meezly 250 tickets. After 20 minutes in the room, I realized that my son wasn't missing those 50 tickets. He didn't care about the big, expensive items. He was happy with the orange and blue mini basketball he had picked out.

My son showed me something that night. Although life is unfair and full of disappointments, we can still find plenty of good things to be happy about. We can choose to look around and see what we don't have or didn't get this Christmas season, or on the other hand, we can look beyond the big stuff and find the small, yet significant treasures that mean the most. Like spending an evening with your child.