Maybe I'll get him an organ and a monkey

"Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world."

Albert Einstein

I awoke to my phone's alarm and a bleak looking day outside; grey clouds, a little rain, and a brisk wind blowing. One of those lazy days that makes you want to roll over and close your eyes again. Max was just moving around when I got up and as I poked my head in his room..."Don't look at me mom!" "OK, I won't." I wondered what he was up to with this early morning order to ignore him.


"I have to pee mom, remember, don't look at me." I left the bathroom with my hair brush and went to my bedroom. I got dressed and sat on the side of the bed to put on my shoes and socks. Max suddenly appeared in the hallway with his speed racer helmet, a green sweater and his pajama pants. He sat down against the wall and positioned the sign he had made that read "SPR SHG PLES" and held a foam can sleeve out on his lap. "What cha doin'?" I asked. He shook the can sleeve at me and in a low rough voice said "Read my sign." I really tried, "SSSSPPPRRRRR SSSSSHHHHHHGGGGGGG PPPPLLLEEESSSS. Spare ? please? What is the second word?.....change?" That resonant voice said "I need money to pay my bills."

I have to say that I am very often floored by some of the things that Max comes up with, seemingly, out of no where. Max not Max explained, in his deep voice, that he lost his job and couldn't pay his bills so his home was taken away and his family was staying with his grandparents in Massachusetts. WOW! He had a whole back story prepared, I was impressed.

I asked what he was saving money for and he mentioned that he wanted to get a car so that he could get a job. I mentioned that it might be less expensive to take the bus and he agreed that he might do that and then he would have the money he needed to spend on the flowers that the girl down the street is selling for $2-3 each. Ding Ding Ding!!

OK, let me back up to Saturday of last weekend. Max was playing at our neighbor's house with her daughter and he noticed that they had perennial flowers for sale in a wagon in their front yard. I was cleaning at home and all of the sudden the front door slams and then nothing. I looked in the living room and Max was taking money out of his piggy bank. "What is the money for?" "Oh, I thought that it would be nice for Amelia to get a big allowance for a change." And he was out the door. 2 minutes later, the front door slams again and little feet run upstairs. "Max?" "Yea Mom, you don't have to come up here." Out the door he went again. By this time I have made the connection that he has acquired a plant and is attempting to hide it in his room. My guess is that the plant is for mother's day, the next weekend. The door slams one more time. This time Max cuts through the parlor to get upstairs unseen with the water saucer for under his plant and again he is out the door. I must say that I appreciate my neighbor making sure that Max has what he needs to NOT make a hideous mess in his bedroom while he hides "the gift".

As an aside, you may have noticed that I knew exactly what Max what doing each time he came and went and I believe that this is an extra sense that mothers are given for going through the whole "caring for a newborn" process. We are able to create a mental map of every aspect of what our child may be doing. With this information we can catch them as they spit the half chewed food into the garbage can in the farthest corner of the house, make them return the candy that they took and stuffed in their pockets, and we can sometimes know what they will do way before they ever even think that it is a possibiltiy. Included in this extra sense is the ability to mask the ability itself. My mother use to tell us that when we lied a red light went on in the middle of our forehead that told her we were being less than honest. If we got caught for something and we stood in front of her holding our foreheads and protesting our innocense, you can bet your bippy (don't you love that saying?!) that we were looking at some killer time in the hole. I am proud to say that Max also believes that he has a light in his head and has, on more than one occasion, busted himself for lying. To my mother, I send my love and an unlimited amount of gratitude for passing on to me these twisted child-rearing tips. What better parenting tool is there than passing along the burden of policing to the criminals!! LOVE IT!!

Back to the action: Sunday AM. Max comes down for breakfast in the morning, and with a confused and surprised look says, "Look what I found! What do you think it is?" He holds out his hand with a small pink flower in the palm and I look at it quizzically before I answer his question, "Wow! When I was a kid we called them diving ducks but I think that they are called bleeding hearts, they are a flower." The show that Max put on for me, while I spoke, was very impressive. He did a lot of humming and "Really?" and pursed his lips while nodding his head. "Where did you find that?" I asked. "Well, it was just upstairs. I have no idea where it came from. It was just there!" I feel a Tony award coming on!! Later that morning, after running up and down hundreds of times, Max asked "Mom, can I give you your mother's day present?" "Oh no, you have to give it to me next Sunday!" "But mom, it is really hard to take care of!" With a look of surprise I yelled, "Is it a puppy or a kitten? Maybe a reptile of some kind!" Max waved his arms and assured me that it was none of those things, though it was alive. I suggested that he talk to Paul and have him help to take care of the mysterious living thing. "Make sure you give it something special, like a little treat." "IT IS NOT AN ANIMAL!!!" "Oh, Ok. It is not and animal. Got it!"

So here we are, Max not Max panhandling in our hallway on a gloomy Wednesday. Max not Max and I talked a little more about his current circumstance and I offered him my son's room, since my Max seemed to have disappeared. He understood that if my Max came back he would have to find another place to stay and was OK with that.

Now most of you may not know that my son has a history of wanting to grow up to be a panhandler. YUP! He has brought it up on several occasions, between the ages of 3 and 5 yrs old. He wanted gum from a vending machine once and when I said no he replied "Fine, I will just panhandle for it." and then proceeded to walk up to a strange woman sitting at a table and ask her for change. I still have no idea where this idea came from but the roots have obviously anchored deeply. I mentioned to Max once that just standing on the street and asking for money is not really a good thing to do, that people can get really annoyed by it. People obviously do this and make some money (I had a client once that made more money panhandling then I did working 40 hours a week) and I have to admit to entertaining the idea a few times while on unemployment. I even went so far as to look into getting one of those busking organs, you know the ones that had the moneys attached to them to collect items from the crowds that gathered. Except for the monkey, I still think about getting one of those cranking organettes and going to local fairs, but I digress.

So here I am again, stuck about what to say and do in these weird scenarios that Max gets me into. First, is panhandling a vocation? Some might say yes, that there are people who are specially suited to do that job. How different is busking from panhandling? Some might say not very and argue that busking is just paying someone else (the local politicians) for the right to panhandle. I just don't know. I don't want to encourage Max to become a panhandler but if he has a talent that he can share and make a little money by busking, who am I to say no? Paul busked in the Chicago subways to make rent when he first moved to Illinois, or maybe he panhandled, he didn't have a permit.

As I was leaving for work, Max not Max the little homeless man in the hallway of my house, was soliciting Paul for some spare change. I wonder how well he did?

Please always remember and don't ever forget:
Pure entertainment is not an egotistical lady singing boring songs on stage for two hours and people in tuxes clapping whether they like it or not. It's the real performers on the street who can hold people's attention and keep them from walking away."
Andy Kaufman