Stahlke Adoption

How Did They Think Of That?

Week 1 in the U.S. (September 2005)
Neighbors informed us that several of the children crawled out a second-floor window, traversed the roof, and re-entered the house through another second-floor window. Jonathan and I quickly learned that we had to watch the children very, very closely.

Month 6
In the bathroom, I reached for the toothpaste tube. It looked very strange--all puffy and bloated. Upon asking the children what had happened, one of them smiled and told me that he had blown air into the tube.

Yesterday
Our local library has a new machine that allows patrons themselves to check out items. I tried out a book with my card and it was pretty easy, so when one of the kids asked to check out books, I said yes. (BIG mistake!) Even though I was seated only ten feet away, I didn't watch what was happening. (Second BIG mistake!)

The next child asked, too, of course, and the receipt appeared with two extra items (videos, not books) printed on it. The child insisted that they hadn't scanned the two extra items, but the videos were definitely checked out on my card, and we didn't have possession of them. I asked the librarian about it, and after a discussion, she agreed to remove them from my account. That's when you're glad you visit the library enough that the staff knows you.

The whole situation seemed very fishy to me, but I couldn't figure out what had happened. When I explained it to Jonathan that evening, he had the solution: There was a rack of videos about five feet away from the scanner, and the child had picked up the machine to play with it, pointed the red beam at the videos, and unknowingly hit two bar codes. Imagine his/her shock when the videos appeared on the printout! He/she was caught red-handed, except that Mom couldn't figure out what had happened! My childhood experience as an obedient daughter didn't exactly prepare me for these kinds of shenanigans.

posted by Stahlkes @ 2:23 PM