The Tandem Bike

One morning last week, Soren was helping me to dry the breakfast dishes and telling me about his new dream.

"Tandem bikes are really cool.  I would really like to have a tandem bike."

"That does sound nice," I said, absently.

Soren continued, "Carl and I could ride together on a tandem bike.  It would be so fun."  He sounded so wistful and for a moment, I could almost see his vision.  I could just picture him and Carl, riding happily together down the driveway with the sunlight glinting around the corners of my mind's eye.  It was such a happy scene.  Oh, if only Soren could have a tandem bike, then the world would be a brighter place.

"Will you get me a tandem bike?"  he asked.

"No," I replied, casting the dream aside.  "That's not how I choose to spend my money."  

We kept drying dishes and I figured that was the end of it.  When the counters were clean, Soren hurried off to go draw something and I started folding laundry.

"How do you order something from a company?"  Soren asked from the table.

Thinking this was a completely new and unrelated topic, I answered, "Well, when I was a kid, you would send an order in the mail.  But now-a-days you usually just order on the internet."

He kept working quietly.

After a few minutes of busily coloring at the table, Soren asked, "Can I have an envelope?"

And that was when I put it together.  "Why do you want an envelope?" I asked cautiously.

"To mail something," was his cryptic reply.  So I got up and came to the table to see what he had been working on.  There I saw this drawing (which confirmed my suspicions):

"Soren," I began, "if you mail this to a bike company, they will not be able to send you a bike because you didn't send them any money."

"That's ok.  I will send them my allowance!"  He hurried to his room to get his piggy bank.

"But you do not have enough money to buy a tandem bike."

"Well, would you give me some more money?"

"I will give you your June allowance in a few days but even then you will not have enough money to buy a tandem bike."  

It hurt watching the hope die in his eyes.

"Well, maybe you could give me a bigger allowance?"  he tried.  

"No, Soren, I'm sorry.  That's just not in my budget."

Not one to be deterred, Soren came up with a new plan.  "I have an idea.  I could borrow some money from someone else!"  And he got his shoes from the closet and began to put them on.

"Who are you going to ask?" I wondered.

"Sister Cowart," he replied.  Well, that seemed all right.  Sister Cowart was my best friend so I wouldn't be too embarrassed to have my son go begging at her door.  I also knew that she was a good enough friend not to be embarrassed either but to help me in this teaching moment.  It seemed like a good opportunity for him to learn that money wasn't easy to come by.  So off he went, hopes high.

I later asked my friend about the encounter.  She said he gave an amazing sales pitch.  But he came back home empty handed and rather teary-eyed.  I held out an arm to him and he snuggled up against me, looking so forlorn.

"Oh, Soren," I sighed.  "I really wish I could buy you a tandem bike.  I think it would be so fun.  Unfortunately, it is just not in our budget."

"Could you do the budgeting today?" he pleaded, seeing a possible loophole.

"Actually, I was planning on doing the budgeting today but I am not going to change our budget.  It doesn't work like that,"  I explained.  "If I budgeted enough money to buy a tandem bike for you, I would not be able to save money for our family to buy a house someday."

At that, his eyes lit back up.  "I have a great idea!" he exclaimed.  "We don't have to buy a house!  We could live here forever!"

"No, Soren.  Someday we will move into a house and I am saving money for that right now."  I wanted to close this conversation for good so I added emphatically, "I am not going to give you money for a tandem bike."

At that, he began to cry.  Real tears!  I felt so sad for him.  He had patiently and persistently tried every tactic he could think of to obtain, what seemed to him, a worthy goal.  It even seemed a worthy goal to me!  Against my better judgement, I began to wish that I was filthy rich and could buy him a tandem bike.  I wanted to make his wild dream come true.  Instead I held him on my lap while he cried.

He cried pretty hard for about 5 minutes then he got back up and went to play.  He has mentioned the tandem bike a few times since then but never with the same intensity.  

Just this morning, he suggested that he could tape his bike together with Carl's to make a tandem bike.  But he didn't end up doing it.  Which is good because that sounded a little dangerous.