Small prices, big services

Yesterday as we turned onto our street to come home from school, I spied a yellow piece of paper on the sidewalk with a rock on it. I know that canary yellow paper. It’s the kids’ drawing paper. I pulled the car over, hopped out, and slid the paper out from under the rock. Now, mind you, I found this five days after my birthday. Here is what I read:

“Come to (insert my name here)’s 30th birthday celebration on February 17, 2007! 5:30pm! (insert my address here) Call (insert my phone number here) if you have any questions. Pass this invitation along to all your friends! See you Saturday! This was written by a 7 year old!”

B#2 says, “Oh yeah! She snuck across the street to leave the invitation!” (giggle, giggle) “She told me she was going to do that!”

I would’ve kept it because it was so funny, but it’s a little smelly. (One of those ornery tomcats must’ve marked it). I’m not sure why the neighbors left it out there, but surely they must not have seen it… No one showed up to my party! ha,ha!

Who would’ve thought B#1 could’ve topped herself the same day! As I’m working on dinner yesterday afternoon, she marches into the kitchen.

(I interject here to give you some background. Upon a friend’s tip about the Nancy Drew Notebooks geared toward younger readers, I picked up three at the library Monday night. By Thursday morning, she’d already read all three. So Thursday I returned those three and borrowed three more. By the time she fell asleep last night, she had read another one.)

“Just so you know, Mom, I’m going to be setting up a desk in the front yard with a sign-up sheet that says, ‘If you need a mystery solved, please sign here for just one dollar...’ Or maybe it should say ‘50 cents.’ Anyways, this is kidwork. Just like Daddy goes to work and makes money for the house, this is what kids do. Do you get this, Mom?” I suggested that maybe it would be better to set up her detective agency indoors. “I know what I’m doing… I need a money-collection box.” Fortunately for her, she found an empty tissue box that is now serving as her cash box. (Unfortunately for B#2, this empty box had already been discovered in the trash and was serving as her doll’s new ‘trash collection box.’)

I walk into the living room and say that we can’t take the detective desk out front because it’s raining. “That’s why I put a top protector on it, Moma.” Yep, indeedy… She’s got a vinyl tablecloth draping the piano bench. She heads to the laundry room and comes back with my step stool. “This is my chair. I’ll need to sit while everyone is lined up to sign up for my mystery solving.”

Turning to her siblings, “You guys wanna watch? You can pretend to sign up so I can practice. You’ve gotta put real money in, though.”

Today she headed to school with her mystery clues notebook in her front jeans’ pocket. Evidently, she had it with her just in case she ran into a mystery at school… but it seems that, at some point during the day, it fell out and is now lost… the last time she actually saw it was walking to class after I dropped her off. The loss wasn’t discovered, though, until we arrived home this afternoon. Wailing cries of sobs and sorrow ensued. A new notebook has been promised by yours truly.

After school, once she realized that I was still not going to let her set up shop in the front yard, she got to work on her “better” idea. Now my front windows and a couple of the trees are adorned with signs that advertise her sleuthing-for-hire. She has moved her office into the entryway. I read the front door sign that said “FREE,” and I decided to come up with a mystery for her to solve. I hadn’t even gotten my name down when she asked for my 50 cents. I objected, “But your sign says ‘free.’” “No,” she says, “it’s free to call me. You have to pay to sign up your mystery.” “But shouldn’t you get paid after you successfully solve the case?” “No, that’s not how it works, Mom.”

Despite the slight case of false advertising, I will still hire her to solve a mystery. I just need to create one first. I’ve got a little time, though. She’s distracted with other things… she’s reading another Nancy.

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