Kyler and I had dinner together this week while mom got her hair done. After dinner I told Kyler we needed to go to the bank to deposit a check. We get to the bank and Kyler recognized it (still not sure how since we rarely GO to a bank) and he says “Um. Dad? Dad get money?”
“Maybe. I need to give them a check but I’ll see if I need money too,” I answer.
“Get some moneys, dad. I need some. I need some moneys in here! Kyler need some money in here,” he says pointing to himself as he sits in his car seat.
Hilarious.
You continue to lower my already low expectations of you. Let me give you a recent example. Yesterday I stopped in to get a new Linksys wireless router. The shelf had 5 of them with the price clearly listed as $129. No price tag was on the box itself, so I assumed that the price that was marked on the shelf was correct.
I was wrong.
I noticed this prior to leaving and stood in the customer service line for 15 minutes to get this resolved. During that time I noticed 7 people behind the counter, but only 2 working registers. When my time finally came, your customer service rep (who greeted me with “you!” instead of the more common “hello, can I help you?”) called for someone to walk back to the shelf with me. It was at that point that the woman said “This is our overstock area, the real ones are here (moving down THREE slots on the shelf area) and pointing out the $199 price.”
Now, I would understand if there was one misplaced item; or if it sat next to the correctly priced stack of products; or if that was the only item marked incorrectly (I counted 3 others with this problem after I noticed it) – but none of those things were true.
During the short walking back to customer service counter, I opened my iPhone, started the Amazon application and found they had the product for $160 (more than the $129 I thought Best Buy was selling it for, but far less than the $199 they actually were selling it for). The app showed I’d get free 2 day shipping meaning I could get it for Christmas!
I then waited for the customer service rep to finish with his current customer. Upon completing that transaction he looked past me and asked the next person to step in line. I said “Um… I’m back.” He looked at me, sighed and said “Oh, you want this back then?”
I explained that I thought Best Buy should really take responsibility for a number of incorrect prices in the area; he wasn’t interested. I asked if they would price match; to which he said “yes, if its a local retailer.” I said “Ah. Because Best Buy doesn’t do business online, right?”
He then informed me (and I’m not making this up) “No, we don’t. Best Buy.com is a separate entity and its my job to keep OUR shareholders happy, not theirs.”
I informed him that I’d like a refund and in 1/2 the time it took him to do that, I purchased the product for less money than Amazon. — ‘Cause its MY job to keep the shareholders happy at whatever company best understands competitive pricing and excellent customer service.
Sincerely,
Me.
I’m sure Kyler still doesn’t fully get things like Halloween. To him it was just a day when the doorbell rang more often and mom & dad actually opened the door vs. avoiding solicitors.
The highlight for me was carving a pumpkin. There’s an old photo of my dad and I (couldn’t find a digital version of it – sorry) carving a pumpkin at the dinner table. I had been looking forward to duplicating those photos with Kyler. He really got a kick out of carving a pumpkin — how could he not? It was messy, gooey and we used a knife to destroy something making it into a silly face … pretty much describes: ‘best toy ever’ for any boy.
He clearly had a bit of an attachment to it. He often wanted to go outside and check on it. He was curious about how it lit up. He wanted to make sure it was still there if he forgot about it for more than 15 minutes. Although the next day – he could care less.
We didn’t get to visit any houses with him dressed up – which we weren’t expecting to… its Minnesota after all; we were thankful it didn’t snow. But he still had fun just the same.
In all, we had about 12-20 kids stop by. I was giving out handfuls of candy by the end of the night to try to get rid of it. The kid next door saw his bag go from empty to pretty full in one house, looked up at me and said “Woah!” – Glad I made his day.
Anyway… pictures from the whole thing:
The other day I was in my office at home and heard Kyler walk in. He was quiet and I didn’t turn away from my computer right away to see him… until I heard him… eating an apple!
I had never seen Kyler eat an apple that wasn’t sliced before. I’m still not sure how exactly he got it, or how he learned how to eat it since we almost always slice it – even when we eat apples. As you can see, he did just fine!
For lunch today we had sandwiches and mozzarella cheese sticks. Kyler absolutely LOVES cheese sticks. If you don”t pull them apart for him into several strings, he will shove the entire cheese stick into his mouth all at once.
Anyhew, he proceeded to eat his cheese strings before I even sat down to eat. As I was slowly pulling off strings of cheese and popping them in my mouth Kyler said “I love you”. Awwwww …… he’s never told me that before without being prompted. I looked at him and said, “I love you too Kyler” – and then I noticed him staring at the cheese in my hand.
He’s barely two and already manipulating me into sharing my cheese with him.
We just got back from the South Dakota Convoy, an event that raises money for the Special Olympics. I’ve never been to this before and have heard lots of stories about it from Johna’s dad, who gets quite involved in running the event. Among other things, there were music performances, an auction and the biggest convoy of semi trucks in the U.S. – an impressive parade that runs through the heart of the city.
We’ve got lots of pictures and videos from the event, so here’s a starter set of a few from the event and our weekend there visiting with family…
More random photo updates from this summer. Check out the captions in the large version of each photo (click on the photo) to see what’s goin’ on in each. Enjoy.
Last weekend, we took Kyler out to the farmer’s market – where he loved checking out the flowers and other kids, and then to a local park – where he enjoyed the 3 mile walk (most of which was from the comfort of his favorite stroller) but he did take time to walk around and even try walking some of it backwards.
So I’m cutting vegetables for dinner tonight and Kyler comes into the kitchen and puts a couple of his trucks up on the counter. He runs off to play with something else and comes back a few minutes later wanting his trucks off the counter. My hands are all wet so I say “Can you reach your trucks?”
He disapears and I resume making dinner thinking nothing of it. He returns with his step stool and puts it in front of the kitchen counter and says “Reach!”
At this point I’m pretty amazed at his creative thinking. He climbs up on his stool and says “oh wow!” as if the 8th world wonder is on the kitchen counter.
The next one is bound to be dumb as a box of rocks.
Going to the toy store is always a weird experience for me. I’m always surprised at how few people are there, how uncool the store is on the inside and how odd some of the toys are. For example:
So… we’ve got an airplane, a boat with a cage and a dinosaur-bird kinda thing with a lego-ish design to him. “FP-217″ is written so big that you would assume it has meaning – which I don’t think it actually does. The fun here is catching flying dinobirds by flying around them and hearding them into a boat-cage? I guess?
—
In the same family of toys, we have a truck-thing with a boom arm of some sort; a shirtless guy who looks like a plastic wrestler… with glasses; and a brown seal that’s being restrained in the six-wheeled truck… thing.
Maybe I’m just missing it on these things – so if someone knows what they are supposed to be, I’d love to know.
