Tortillas and Lollies

I took The Squidd out for a drive the other day just to get him out of the house. 

The first stop on the drive was a place that specializes in pseudo-Mexican/Caribbean food.  Needless to say, The Squidd was not appeased.  I asked the shopkeeper how much was the bag of 30 corn tortillas languising in the fridge.  In response I was tsked (and boy do I hate to be tsked these days) and was told that I could only buy the tortillas individually.  Individual tortillas!  AND each corn tortillas was a little over $2!  Needless to say, I was not appeased.

Our solution to this New Zealand corn tortillas fiasco is simple.  We have asked Wordy's sister to 'import' roughly 200 corn tortillas from East LA when she comes to visit us next week.  The price of 200 corn tortillas is roughly $5 (US).  This means once we receive our tortilla 'package' we will have roughly $500 (NZ) in tortillas!  Wordy then plans to sell them on the streets to establish our Corn Tortilla Cartel where the first corn tortilla is free...

So back to The Squidd.

His mood after the pseudo-Mexican experience was not improving.  Personally, I didn't blame him.  My mood was not improving either.  So I decided to take him to a shop that I had driven by numerous times while taking him to the beach.  From the outside the building is offensively pink and reminds me of a place where zombie clowns would want to settle down and start a family.  BUT, inside this pink building I knew there would be something that would excite any 3 year old. Candy.  Lots and lots of candy.  With a name like the Lolly Shop, how could I go wrong? 

When we first started to enter the building, I was relieved to see a giant gumball machine because chances were good that I somehow missed the New Zealand vernacular for porn shop.  The Squidd was stunned into silence once we entered the main area where there were rows upon rows of candy.  He had never seen such a thing and just watching his reaction gave me the biggest smile.  I told The Squidd he could choose one thing from the store.  Little did I realize that they had a 30 pound lollipop for sale ($90!) and immediately he told me that that was what he wanted.  Crap!  Think fast Rocky!  I immediately scoped out a big display of Chupa Chups and steered him that way.  After some persuasive negotiation he settled upon a strawberry Chupa Chup in which he got to lick it all the way home while listening to his favorite Flaming Lips album.  This might not be a big deal, but it was for me.  It was his first lollipop.  And I will always remember how proud he was to be a big boy and how he enjoyed that experience with his dad.