Caught in the Act: A Dad's Vulnerability

On Saturday morning, all four of us (initially, I accidentally wrote 'three' back there. Sorry, Lucy!) headed out to do some shopping. I had to return a shirt, buy my dad a birthday gift and we had some miscellaneous miscellany to buy for the house. You know, garage door openers and push brooms and such.

We decided to head to the mall first. As we approached the store where I was making my return, SOB spotted a toy store. He decided to take Sam over there while I took care of my returning business with Lucy. Well, since it was early and the mall was nearly deserted, I was finished in no time. I wandered over to the toy store and saw SOB at the register, handing over what appeared to be multiple twenty dollar bills. As soon as he saw me, his whole face went red. He grabbed his change and stuffed it in his pocket abashedly. Sam, meanwhile, was tearing the place apart. At that moment he was rifling through a huge display of ring pops, in hopes of finding an open one.

SOB gathered up the boy and the toy and met me outside. He silently took his package and crammed it into the bottom of the stroller. We walked a few paces before he finally looked at me and confessed. He said that he couldn't help himself. That if I had seen the look on Sam's face when saw the toy in action in the store, I would have done the same thing. We decided that it would be a Christmas present.

And as if it wasn't sweet enough to see my big, strong, manly husband felled by a child's reaction to a mechanized Sesame Street character, he agreed to never again chastise me for buying toys every time we go to Target. Score!