The Nice Card

Recently the little guy was out playing in the mountains of snow pushed up from plowing the driveway. He played and played, using his snowshovel for both good and not-so-good things. After over an hour of this, he came back in the house to warm up.

“Did you have fun?”

“Yeah,” he said. the red cheeks smiled as he sat while I took off his boots and snowpants.

After warming up in a blanket and some cartoons, he took off after the cat. When that didn’t turn out the way he wanted, he tore into the piles of toys his grand mothers bought him for Christmas. That pile grew and made the living room a total mess.

“Hey, you need to pick up your toys.”

“No, I don’t want to.”

And with that, he ran off to the next room.

“Hey,” I said, going after him, “you need to go out and pick up those toys.”

“No, Daddy, I don’t want to.”

With this, I brought out the big guns. Namely the House Mom…

“Pick up your toys NOW,” she said in a tone that made me want to go pick up anything that might be considered my toys.

“I can’t.”

“Why can’t you,” she asked.

“Because.”

“Because why,” I asked.

“Because I not a nice boy anymore.”

“Why aren’t you a nice boy anymore?”

“Did your Nice Card fall out or something while you were playing,” she asked.

“Yeah, my Nice Card fell out. I naughty now.”

“Do you need me to make you a new one,” she asked.

“Yeah,” he said somewhat dejected.

With that, my wife made a small card and wrote “NICE” in big, bold letters across it. She took it over and put it in the little guy’s back pocket.

“Hey, I nice now. Daddy look, I have a Nice Card! I am a good boy!”

And just like that, he went out and picked up all of his toys.

All this time, I had no idea.

My wife, however did NOT find it funny when I made one for her.

I didn’t even show her the other card I made for her.

Oh well.

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