Luke and his friend spread out the mess and then showed what it means to yield.
With a friend over on a Saturday, the game of choice for my 7-year-old son, Luke, was “Shop.” That means toys and books of all varieties were hauled from his bedroom to fill all corners of the living room, and price tags were about to be created in a garage-sale-style make-believe venture. In other words, the mess was spreading like the coronavirus.
In addition to the advertising sign that was posted in the kitchen to attract the family’s attention, Luke also had one more sign to make.
“We need a disabled parking space,” he told his friend.
My wife, Hailey, and I overheard these plans while we sat on the couch, working on our laptops. It was unclear at first whether Luke was trying to poke fun at his mother’s boot, which she has been wearing since she had surgery a month earlier.
But he seemed pretty sincere when he tried to impress upon his friend how important it was.
“In our shop, if we don’t have a disabled parking space, we’ll get arrested,” Luke said.
A few minutes later, apparently the business had fulfilled as many legal requirements as Luke could think of, and the shop officially opened.
Unfortunately, no customers.
So, as with most new stores, the first customers were friends and family who were guilted into it.
“Dad, can you be a customer?” Luke asked.
“Probably,” I mumbled, still staring at my laptop.
“Right now?” he added.
I dutifully walked into the living room and surveyed the wares, all of which Hailey and I had purchased for him in the past, of course.
In one “aisle,” he had placed a stack of books. In another “aisle,” also known as a quadrant of the rug in front of the coffee table, I saw some action figures arranged neatly, side by side.
It was surprisingly moving to see the amount of work they had put into this store. They had come up with this idea on their own and then executed it without any help. I could see how proud they were of it, and, by some miracle of parenting, I felt that same pride, as if it were a gift they, or perhaps God, had given me, a multiplication of their accomplishment, allowing me to generously take part in their harvest even though I hadn’t done the sowing.
Luke’s friend was sitting on the couch with an old laptop keyboard that didn’t work. I surmised that she was the cashier, so I brought my selected items to her for checkout: an Iron Man action figure, a miniature plastic can of fruit cocktail, and a composition book of Luke’s kindergarten grade assignments, with misspellings galore.
“That’s 32,” the cashier told me. Then, almost as an afterthought, she said, “Dollars.”
“Here you go,” I said, miming a fistful of cash. I was playing along, entering their world of make believe like a great dad who—
“We don’t take fake money,” Luke’s friend said with a straight face.
For a moment, I felt that I had just entered a mobster’s lair, gotten myself into a real predicament. What would happen to me if I couldn’t cough up the cash?
I offered my credit card instead, as a peace offering.
Overseeing this “transaction,” Luke was wise to my ruse. I might have been imagining it, but I believe that in his smile — that good natured, everpresent smile — I also saw a fleeting disappointment, which revealed that he had at least an inkling of hope that all of this work would pay off with actual money.
Was this store make-believe, or was it a real business in his eyes?
Whatever his true vision had been, as soon as he saw that I didn’t intend to pay the $32 in cash, he immediately accepted it, by some miracle of childhood, in perfect humility to accept that his father’s will would be done.
Hailey, hobbling past the handicapped parking spot (aka a kitchen chair), approached the cash register next. Her total price showed the extent to which Luke and his friend had yielded. They had given up on real money, and it was now pure fun.
“That’ll be $1 billion,” Luke told her with a laugh that was completely without guile. The two friends giggled, no hard feelings, no expectations, no disappointment.
For Luke, getting his parents to play was payment enough.
