How to Win Friends and Influence People

Now that I broke down and started posting I figure I will write something banal since I can't sleep at all, despite taking a whole bunch of opiates for my migraine.

Today I went shopping for my godson's (okay, is it creepy that I can find photos of him online? Technology. He is the one in the blue sweatshirt who keeps showing up in these photos, probably because he's the cutest) 6th birthday. The birthday shopping is fun for so many reasons. I can't really lose because everything that's made in America is really expensive in Australia (where he lives) and not only that, just the fact that some stupid toy is from America makes it cool (until the kid hits teenagehood and begins to despise everything that has to do with the U.S. because we are stupid and loud and are trying to take over their culture. As if we think about Australia enough to actually try to do something like that. As if lawn bowls and Vegemite would really be missed. As if that stuff didn't come from England in the first place). But anyway, whenever I go to buy kid's stuff I am incredibly impressed with how cheap it all is. I'm not sure if this is because $10 isn't like a whole year's allowance anymore or if things are cheaper now, or if my parents were total cheapskates and didn't buy us anything that didn't come from a garage sale. I mean, come on. Hungry Hungry Hippos? I spent years coveting that game. And you know how much it costs? $15. Fifteen bucks! Seriously, I would have gotten a lot more than $15 worth of enjoyment out of that beautiful plastic contraption, even though there's always one hippo that works best and it only takes about 5 minutes to figure out which one it is. You know those Nerf basketball hoops you hang on your door and the net disappears in a couple days but the orange hoop stays there for years? $3.90. Is anyone else impressed by this or was I just a deprived child? Should I be feeling sorry for myself right now? Because I kind of do.

With adulthood comes the knowledge that with $50 I can choose whatever I want in a toy store and get like 5 of them. It's awesome. If you know any kids and want to buy their love, head over to Target or something. It's fairly painless and you'll probably get like 2 friendship bracelets in return.