Robot Club

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 My youngest son informed us yesterday that he has a competition with his robot club at school on Saturday.  Today I asked him what time it was at 0830 in the morning.  Cool.  No problem.  Then I asked him if they had matching shirts.  He said yes.  When did you get it?  Today.  Oh?!?  And he pulls a blue shirt out of his backpack.  One of his new shirts that he got for Christmas.  And he had the club faculty advisor iron on a robot to the back.  He already had a design on the front.  His is blue.  There's are black.  So....  we have a problem.  Does he wear his blue shirt that he messed up with the club logo?  As punishment for not telling anyone before the night before the competition?  I said you could tell everyone the blue shirt means you're the team captain.  He didn't like that idea.  Then how about telling everyone the teacher's aide gets to wear a special blue shirt.  He didn't like that idea either.  So...  I asked him if he'd rather wear is disaster of a blue shirt because it had the logo on it or wear a generic black shirt?  He looked up and said he'd rather wear a generic black shirt.  So, I made him stop what he was doing and get in the car and we trekked over to walmart and bought one.  But here's the deal.  I made him wear the shirt over his existing shirt once we found one that fit.  Because it has bar code on it.  So we went to the self check out and I picked him up and scanned him and paid for the shirt.  He tried to take it off.  No sir.  You will wear that shirt and show the lady checking receipts at the door your receipt and explain why you're wearing the shirt instead of carrying it in the bag. And you will wear it home and tell your Mom why you're wearing it.  He walks in and tells my wife what the deal was while wearing his shirt and carrying the receipt.  My wife asks if I really did that.  Duh. Yes, I did.  He's got to remember this so he can hone his memory for important things.

I figure a little bit of unconfortable explaining will be a learning experience for him.  I could have made him wear the the blue shirt he ruined to the competition but thought that would also be a more humiliating learning experience.   On the way back we had a couple laughs and were listening to the Footloose soundtrack in the car.  I asked him what he thought Poppy (my dad) would have done.  He said poppy would have made you wear the wrong shirt to the competition.  He's probably right.  We laughed some more.  

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