"That game is a waste of money Viana, trust me!!...." I told my 6yo...sorry 7yo.
She turned 7 today & we took her out for some fun & games at her favorite place which has some electronic fun games.
"Alright Viana, we played a lot of games now, let's leave for dinner" I said after a while. They are never happy when they get told such things so I got the usual eye roll... "Papa can I please play one of those today? I know I can easily win" she claimed ( firing one of those cute expressions she knows works on me like a charm). She was pointing at a game where you have the claw hanging with various items that need to be picked up with the claw. As a kid (& infact as an adult too) I've almost never won any of those. In the past everytime she has asked me if she could play it, I pushed back saying these never fetch anything. I said the same today but the birthday girl was a bit persistent this time. I eventually gave in & agreed to let her play on the condition that I will help her position the claw (imagine, I, who have always failed...bad decision).
She agreed & I started the game & carefully positioned the claw over a pack of tickets & asked her to hit the button to activate the claw to move down. But before I knew, she used her hand to change the position of the claw & hit the button to move the claw down! I raised my hands in protest....but... miraculously, the claw picked up not one, not two but three ticket bunches! After a few victory cries we took the bunches & ran towards the ticket eater machine (for the uninitiated, the ticket eater counts the ticket and at the end you gotta swipe the card to add those tickets to your card. The tickets get redeemed for items). The ticket eater counted 300 tickets & we both were ecstatic!! We immediately ran towards my wife & mom to announce our accomplishment!!
We then quickly went to check the ticket balance on our card & to our shock the 300 tickets weren't reflecting! That's when it hit me that when we saw the figure of 300 tickets at the ticket eater, in the excitement of sharing the news with the rest, I had forgot to swipe the card to get those tickets credited! I ran back to the counter & saw 2 kids jumping with joy... they had just fed their tickets & probably ended up adding our 300 to their card as well...ofcourse, I did not have the heart to tell the birthday girl about it...
Learnings:
1. Just coz you could never do it,doesn't mean the juniors can't too.
2. Don't always interfere when they are doing something (especially after point 1) coz they probably will end up doing it the way they want - and perhaps rightly so.
3. Excitement is great - but it does fog the mind a bit at times & one may end up throwing it all away if the excitement is not handled well.
4. Sometimes one may end up getting benefitted due to others' misfortune/mistake,even if one never wanted to get the undue benefit. The lady luck likes having fun in her own way & you smile & accept it gracefully on such occasions.
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