There’s no gasoline to be had in these mountains, so the wife and I have been riding to work together to save said gas. One of the best parts of this is our spending more time with our cherubim, Sonny Boy and Baby Girl. Such little darlings they are–screeching and flinging and whatnot.

Anyhow, Sonny’s after-school program rewards good behavior with Y bucks (not a legal tender, mind you), and we arrived today just in time to see him redeem three of his Y bucks for a small plastic cellphone. He’s pretty stoked about that, mainly because if you push a little button when the phone is closed it springs open with some violence.

In the five dollar Y buck bin, there were some five car sets of Hot Wheels cars, and the Y matron told me that each car cost five Y bucks. On the way home I thought it would be an awesome after-school program occurrence if Sonny stockpiled his Y bucks for week after week after week until he could procure in one amazing purchase the entire five car pack of Hot Wheels cars.

I got to thinking about the logistics of this. First, the plan would require considerable self control by a seven-year-old tempted each week by bins of fabulous swag–plastic cell phones, plastic dinosaurs, crap like that. And, the plan would require a steady income of Y bucks, something that mystifies Sonny Boy as he cannot really determine what exactly earns him a Y buck. He knows he gets Y bucks for “being nice,” but the degree of niceness, the presence of an observing after-school official, the fact that by that point in the day he’s often worn to a frazzle, all of these things combined to stupify me as well. I didn’t even know how they kept track of Y bucks for each week.

Ms. AlphaLima told me that they kept a chart on the wall of the gym. “What do they write them down with?” I asked. She replied, “Marker. They keep track with a marker.”

The gym is almost always empty when I come to pick Sonny Boy up. I have a marker. I can probably through very little research figure out where the Y buck chart is. Get my drift?

There’s no national, state, or local law as far as I know about adding marks to the Y buck chart. I don’t think that the Y czars would be able to keep track of all Y buck credits each week without noticing one or two extra that somehow appeared there. And the purchase would be the thing of legend. If they caught me, I could blame it on Congress and then the feds could bail me out.

You are correct if you are thinking that this is a foolproof plan.

Ms. AlphaLima did not approve of my wily machinations. To which I replied with some vehemence, “Daggone, Yo!”

All of this serves to underscore that time-honored adage penned long ago (unless I am mistaken) by the venerable Benjamin Franklin:

“Behind every successful man there is a woman, struggling as she might to keep him from becoming even more successfuller.”