Independence Will Be Taken Back, My Son

Micah has that love affair with Sheetz. I have come to realize that he especially likes the touch screen ordering kiosks because he can navigate that independently to get what he wants rather than relying on us to translate to a waitress. That is beginning to irk him, and he needs to just start carrying his Voice with him so that he doesn't have to rely on us. He's not a fan of carrying the Voice anywhere besides school, so we'll have to work on changing that.

We were at McDonalds the other day for ice cream and Micah had his own money to spend, courtesy of Grandma's Easter basket. With his own money, he wanted to do his own ordering, and it wasn't ice cream. He ordered a chicken sandwich and fries. When he says "chicken" it sounds like "she-k." We know what he means, but to the general public it sounds like gibberish. Or "milkshake," which is what the cashier though he said. That cashier got tons of brownie points that day. First of all, he listened to Micah and tried to translate on his own rather than looking over Micah's head and asking us what the strange-sounding boy wanted to order. I had to clarify that Micah wanted a chicken sandwich, and Micah got all sorts of mad at me for intruding on his independence. The cashier also got bonus points for then realizing that Micah wanted to do things all by himself and looked at Micah and said, "that'll be $3.59." That small boy of mine was incredibly proud to hand over his fistful of dollars and pay for it all by himself.

It was about that time that I realized that Micah needed a Sheetz gift card in his Easter basket. Not only could he order by himself there, but he could pay for it as well.

So we were at Sheetz last night after soccer because I promised Micah that if he went out and finished practice after coming to sit in the bleachers with me mid-way through the hour that I'd take him for a pop at Sheetz. He requested a hot dog as well, which I originally nixed and then remembered that he hadn't eaten dinner before we left and it was nearing bedtime, so spending an extra $1 for 2 hot dogs would be in my best interest. But I was adamant that he wasn't spending an extra 80 cents for bacon on his hot dogs. He will, you know, if you don't watch him with those touch screens. And sure enough, he added bacon. Thankfully they have a "back" button, which I pushed, and I deleted the bacon right off his hot dogs. Knowing that *that* was taken care of, I went to my own touch screen kiosk and ordered a smoothie.

I paid for our things, I got my custom made smoothie, Luke got his hot dogs, and we waited for Micah's. And we waited. And we waited some more. And that's when I looked at my receipt because I was wondering why my bill was so high for two sets of $1 hot dogs and drinks. That stinker of a son of mine ordered a fry platter with his hot dogs because I nixed his bacon.

He will be losing his independence in the touch-screen kiosk rights in the near future, that boy will.

And then, to suck up, he gave those fries to daddy when he got home just to show me that he only thinks of others and not himself. Unfortunate for him, I'm not that easily duped. That boy.