Remember When .... $1 Paid for a Movie, Drink AND Popcorn

At some point in our lives, most of us have heard from either our grandparents or our own parents stories of "remember when". They've told us about walking uphill in the snow-barefoot, they've told us about working long hard hours when a day's pay was only $3.00 and they've told us there was a time when you could take your sweetie to the movies, buy popcorn & a coke all for a buck. Don't take this the wrong way my friendly readers but c'mon now, just how much is a buck gonna get'ya in 2010? Mmhmm, that's what I thought. So did Macy Walker.


Yesterday was her 7th birthday party and lemme tell'ya, she is one loved little girl! She got more presents than you could shake a stick at. Although she did get a few duplications, she absolutely loved every cotton-pickin' gift she got! No worries though, I took her bright & early this morning to exchange them.


I wanted to use the whole exchange process as not only a math lesson ... you know adding up how much the return items would be compared to how much she could spend with the returns but also as a life lesson on how to return things to the store. As we prepared to leave, I counseled Macy on the process. Just as we began to walk out the door, she screeched "WAIT! I think I wanna' take my Wal Mart Giftcard I got too.", "Is that okay? Can I go get it real quick?" I replied, "Sure. Hurry up. I'll wait here.", as I stood in the doorway I watched her make a mad dash over to the cabinet where her mound of birthday gift cards lain. She rifled through them to find the one that said "Waaallll Mart" (that's what I heard her sound out as she got to just the right card). Just as she snatched that one out of the pile, she flipped it over to see what was on the back. That my friends is when all tradgedy of the dollar-days-no-more broke loose.



"TEN DOLLARS??", I heard Macy yelp as tears started to come to her eyes. "Mom! I can't buy ANYthing for ten dollars!" Before I could even get a word out, she marched over to the drawer where I keep pens. As she opened the drawer retrieving a Sharpie she proclaimed, "I'm just gonna write this for more money!"