How I Spend My Time

One of my children lost a recorder this week.  Said child has not been able to find it and has supposedly looked everywhere.  I've seen how my children look for things and this child can be especially oblivious, so I have a really hard time believing all possibilities have been explored. 

The child recieved two F's in music for losing said recorder.  One for not having it and one for not being able to take a quiz because of not having the recorder.  If the recorder had been located the child could have taken the quiz the following day.  It was not located.

The child was not overly concerned about finding the recorder because they knew where another one could be purchased.  This is how the conversation went:

Child: I know where to get a new recorder

Me:  Oh, you do?

Child: Yes at Straight Music.

Me:  Do you know how much a new recorder costs?

Child:  Um, I think about $9.

Me:  Great, so you will need to pay me the $9 for the recorder, plus gas money for me to drive to the music store, and you'll need to pay for my time.  Let me see.  Gas is currently $3.15/gallon and it will take me at least gallon to get there and back.  Hmmm.  I don't know what to charge you for my time.  Lets say $10/hour and it will probably take me about 45 minutes.  So that would be $7.50 for my time.  And honestly I should charge you more for my time but I think that is reasonable.

Child:  Why should I pay you for your time?  All you do is sit around anyway...

Me:  Really?  You think so? 

Child:  And you know the recorder wasn't working well anyway.  I think it was broken.

Me:  Is that so?  And who else used the recorder?

Child: Just me.  But it was getting broken. 

Me:  Well that doesn't really change anything.  I told you I would only buy one recorder.  You have now broken and lost that recorder so you will now need to purchase a new one to replace the one I purchased.

Child:  But music is over this week.  I don't need it anymore. 

Me:  No. But I bought a recorder for our family to use.  I trusted you with it.  You lost it.  Now you need to replace it.

Child:  But I don't want to spend $20 on a recorder because then I won't have enough money to buy the 3DS!

Me:  Yeah, that's a bummer isn't it.

I still can't believe I didn't lose it at the "Why should I pay for your time?" point.  Oh my goodness.  It will be a long time before that statement is forgotten. 

Said child has one more day to find the recorder before the new one is purchased.  Not surprisingly, I haven't seen the child looking for it.  I guess that 3DS wasn't so important after all.

Jenn