Rocky the Airplane

This is the story about Rocky the Airplane and Albin the Double-decker bus. It took place in January of '07.

Zack loves three things in life: Trains, planes and automobiles. Something about the speed and power of these machines fascinates him. His favorite movies are Pixar's Cars and Disney's Polar Express.

Zack, at times, thinks he is a train. He'll pump his arm like the driving pistons of a steam train and either make car or train noises (as appropriate to the situation). For planes, he doesn't pump his arms as he usually has a plane in his hand and makes high pitched jet engine noises as the plane streaks at high speed near someone's face. He does this so they can have the full effect of the plane's speed. Well, that and the ability to make people blink is pretty cool.

So, when Deb and I go out to shop the question from Zack is always, "Are we going to the train store?" The ordeal of the train store is documented in other blog posts so needless to say, we don't go there often.

On this day's trip my wife and I were looking for carpets and bar stools. We wound up with neither but on this day we went to World Market. Now World Market is an all around nice store with lots of nick-nacks and items from the world over (but mostly made in China). The have a good selection of wines, glassware (which we purchased), furniture, carpets, and ornamental stuff you put on shelves and in curios. Zack generally enjoys the store since they have ornamental trains, cars, boats, and planes to play with.

On this day, he was very good and sat in one place while Deb and I picked out some new glasses. We were so proud of him we agreed he could have one of the ornamental planes to take home. On the way to the register, he also found a double-decker bus he wanted.

Now Deb and I both agreed he could have one but not two. So at the register we tried the fruitless task of making a three year old see logic. Deb gave up and punted to me. So I asked, "If you could only have one, which would you choose?"

"I choose 2," replied Zack.

Well, in some ways a 2 is only one number so I think I lost that round. My next question was completely stupid. "If you had to choose between having both and going to college which would you choose?"

"But I want both," protested Zack.

To be honest, I was surprised he didn't give up college. I stood there scratching my head wondering how a three year old got the better of me in the argument. The people around us were all smiling. So next on the better parenting through deception method of child rearing, I decided to hide one of the items at the register.

Now our clerk that day was a red-headed youth with multiple facial piercings. This isn't someone you'd normally consider a nice guy. He had a dour expression on his face that showed no joy or love for the world so what he did next was a surprise.

As he rang up the airplane he applied a 40% discount. Debbie asked, "Are those on sale."

The clerk just looked down at Zack then up and Deb. His expression didn't change. He never smiled but he said "They are today."

He rang up the bus with a 40% discount as well.

I'm still not sure why he did it. Did he think Zack was cute? Did he overhear the conversation and decided to reward us for getting our son something special? Or was he just 'sticking it to the man' a.k.a. his boss.

I'm not sure but I think he thought the entire conversation with Zack was interesting enough to warrant a discount. Whatever his reasons were, I'm glad he did it. Zack played with the things for days. They went into the bath with him. He's named them Rocky the Plane and Albin the bus.

Rock and Albin sitting on my desk as I write this. Happy to have a home with a little boy that loves them.