Negative Lessons In Real Life

Earlier today while eating lunch my twelve year old was regaled me about his attempts with lucid dreaming. Let that sink in. He brought up the subject. Sometimes he surprises me in such wonderful ways. I’m glad he has an inquisitive mind and is willing to jump into any subject that interests him. He hasn’t been successful yet with the lucid dreaming. I’ve never had a lucid dream either but then again, I’ve never tried. So, yeah. I just hope he doesn’t retain any of the negative lessons that my wife and I have thrust upon him.

At the moment I’m typing this on my IPad in the Microsoft store at the mall, while waiting for the time to come for a class at the Apple store. I’m waiting here because my son wanted to play some games to kill the time. Originally the idea was to go to the Pop Con that is located at the other end of the mall. However when we approached the door we were asked if we were looking for the place to buy tickets. My response was “You have to buy tickets to go inside? When this guy affirmed that I just said “that’s stupid” and walked away.

I muttered to my son that it wasn’t going to happen, that I wouldn’t pay for the privilege of going inside to purchase anything, especially things that I don’t need. I mean, shouldn’t the idea be that you WANT foot traffic thereby increasing the potential for sales? That just show the times we live in, paying for the right to peruse and buy things I don’t need. Or maybe it’s just some old man complaining.

Of course we could have been sitting at home watching Rick and Morty together but one of those aforementioned negative lessons reared it’s ugly head and I just had to get out of the house. You would think after all these years I would recognize the signs that I was being drawn into an unnecessary argument and have the wherewithal to avoid it. But no. Not me, not today. There are things you cannot take back once you’ve uttered them.

No amount of apologies to my son can make up for what he was subjected to and sure, it’s a two way street, it takes two to tango (throw in your own time worn adage here) or whatever but still. I hate that he gets exposed to this negativity and don’t want him growing up to think that is the way people should act. Because it’s not and I told him so, for whatever that’s worth. Time for class.

Written and Published by Don Leach. May not be used without permission from the author.