Business Up Front, Party in the Back

Unsupervised play time this week meant "beauty shop" for Madison and Brooklyn, Madison being smart enough to be the beautician and make Brookie be the customer, but not smart enough to realize how much trouble she would get into once the deed was done.

We've been allowing Madison a lot of freedom to do her "crafts" as she has demonstrated more responsibility. She tells us she wants to be an artist when she grows up. I suppose that is what helped her to feel comfortable sneaking some scissors from the cupboard.

For her part, Brooklyn was more than a willing participant. She's the one that came downstairs to show off her new do and in the process, blew the cover of the illegal hair cutting ring operating out of our toy room. The only things missing were some tattoos and unnaturally tan, leathery skin. Brookie has a mullet.

Both girls are presently locked out of the toy room - the crime scene - until Christmas Eve when all of the cousins will come over and we'll be forced to let them in. Madison has also lost all of her "craft" privileges until that same day. That was my punishment for them.

Sara's choice is psychological abuse every time they ask for anything. "No, because you cut Brooklyn's hair and now she looks like a hillbilly."

Madison also wanted to choose a punishment. She decided to institute a library-style system for their DVDs. Now, all of their movies are in a drawer in my office and they must check out one at a time and return it before getting another.

So far both girls seem rather indifferent to the entire situation. I'm not sure who's punishing who.

NoFlix

I fully expect to be asked the following survey question someday: "For how long have you had your current DVDs from Netflix at home?"

This would, of course, serve as some type of indicator as to how busy one's life is at that particular juncture. 

We've been with Netflix for nearly four years. Early on, we were extremely eager to take full advantage of the "unlimited" feature of our rental agreement. We typically could turn around a DVD on the day after we received it in the mail. This allowed us to churn through six DVDs per week using our 3-at-a-time plan, barring post office holidays. We definitely got our money's worth back then.

But that was all before kids numbers two and three showed up. Before swim lessons. Before preschool. Before ballet. Before they were capable of hurricane-force destruction on a daily basis. And before they overthrew the previous commander in chief of the television in a bloodless coup.

We've slowed down quite a bit since those times. Just a few months ago we were averaging approximately three DVD turnovers per week - still a remarkably good deal when compared to renting those same 12 movies from a local rental store each month.

However, the three discs we currently have at home have been in our possession since the end of September. That's seven weeks. We've paid two monthly dues during that span, yet have not watched a single movie. We're obviously already aware of this and still cannot seem to find time to watch our current films.

So we agreed we should suspend our account until after the first of the year when (hopefully) our lives will be a bit less hectic. Netflix allows customers to suspend their accounts for up to 90 days without losing anything. Sort of like a vacation hold on your mail or newspaper.

I haven't gone through with the suspension yet. Reason being - we have seven days to return the DVDs currently in our possession before a you-bought-it fee of $20 per movies is assessed. Therein lies the problem - at present I don't think we can reasonably expect to watch our current movies and return them within seven days. It's not that we don't want to watch them - we do. It is simply a matter of prioritization. 

And so it is that our Netflix movies remain at the bottom of my inbox, AKA to do list, AKA honey-do list, AKA that big pile on my desk. Kevin Spacey, Steve Carell and Natalie Portman will simply have to bide their time waiting for their 15 minutes. Sorry guys. After four months the membership dues will wash with the $60 I'd have to spend to buy you outright. If you're still around at that point, I'll be forced to return you, unwatched.