Monday, November 28, 2011

I'm stupid but not THAT stupid.

Look at the proper way in which Kitty holds her markers. Clearly an advanced child, no? Actually, no is correct. The kid has a promising career as a tagger. Despite our constant reminders to "write only on paper" she tries her level best to mark walls, furnishings and the faces of those holding her. We outsmarted her though and went ahead and paid the extra dosh for Crayola Wonder markers which ONLY mark on Color Wonder paper.  Score one for better living through technology there.

Buoyed by her outstandingly advanced penmanship (she's great at drawing circles. But that's her entire repertoire) and her keen interest in toilets I thought it might be time to do a lackadaisacal bit of potty training. I figure since she still doesn't sleep through the night I am due for some easy with this kid and maybe easy and early potty training might be in our future. So we decided to buy a very simple, small and easily portable potty and see if she warms up to the idea of using it.

 After being agast at all the potties on the market with bells, whistles, flashing lights and canned thunderous applause I finally located a suitably simple potty and discovered that the closest retailer was Babies R Us. So off we went to make the purchase. As the woman at the till rang my order up she said "This purchase qualifies for our buyer protection plan. Would you like to purchase a buyers protection plan?" I'm sure I looked at her as if she had an alien baby hatching out of her skull. "A warranty? For a plastic potty? Are you serious?!?!" To which she replied "Well it covers you for accidental damage." Now the American tendency to over consumerize everything always rankles me but this to me was the height of STOOPID. An extended warranty for a $20 plastic potty. I wonder how many people actually pay for it? I wonder how many other countries have such stupid grabs for extra cash by retailers?

I told the woman I would be interested in a warranty only if it guaranteed my kid would use the potty. She did not think I was funny.

5 comments:

  1. This is Awesome. Funny how she took herself so seriously. If I were that cashier, I would say the upsell line, trying not to smirk the whole time and then be relieved when you thought it was a dumb as I did!:) haha. How is the potty training going?

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  2. We haven't really started yet. So far she is very excited about putting paper in her potty, putting her bear on it and carrying it around and that's good enough for now. We'll see if she is interested in exploring the potty's use a bit more in the next few days. We aren't in a hurry.

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  3. Well *I* thought it was funny, so that should count for something. Maybe there is something to the who bad sleep/easy potty connection. Because Jared was four (YEARS, not months) before he slept through the night even occasionally. But I had a very easy time with the potty training. Pretty much for both of them I just told them I was done buying diapers and that was that.

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  4. NO> an extended warranty for a toddler potty..hahahaha! That tops all!

    By the way..this photo is precious! She is a doll:) She's going to be an artist....I'm pretty sure I read Monet drew on walls when he was a kid;)( at least that's what I keep telling myself) Barefoot Mama

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  5. Well, I'll be laughing all day! What a precious photo. Maybe she'll be a blogger! I hope she likes her new potty! And good for you for ignoring all the bells and whistles. Can you imagine what goes on in the brain of a child who experiences 'canned applause' after going potty? Really! One has to wonder.

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