By Rick Kaempfer
The other day I broke up yet another fight between my oldest son Tommy (age 12) and my youngest son Sean (age 6). Sean wanted Tommy to play with him, and Tommy rudely rejected him until screaming and/or punching ensued.
But this time things seemed a little bit different. Moments after I broke up the fight, the house was completely quiet. Normally after a fight, Sean would be plotting some sort of diabolical way to annoy or irritate the brother who rejected him. This time he went into the basement without protest.
I was more than a little suspicious when he nonchalantly walked back into the room a few minutes later and asked me some very strange questions.
“Dad, how do you spell open and closed?”
“Dad, where do we keep the sleeping bags?”
“Dad, can I use this Cubs cup?”
“Dad, can I write on this blank piece of paper?”
“Dad, does the top of the toy box come off?”
That last one actually got me off my backside to investigate.
“No!” he said. “Not yet! I’m not ready for you.”
“What are you working on, Sean?”
“I’m building my office,” he said. “You can’t come down right now because my office is…” And then he held up the sign he just made: “CLOSED.”
“Gotcha.”
I admit it. I was dying to see what he was doing, but I also knew it wouldn’t be long before he held up the OPEN sign, and all of my questions would be answered. It was no more than five minutes later.
“Come down to my office, sir,” he said, while pointing to the basement. “I’m open for business.”
When I saw the office he had built, I had to bite my lip. His “desk” was the detached lid of the toy box propped on top of a sleeping bag. On this desk, he had placed a cup of pencils, and a blank piece of paper. He sat down on his “chair” (a giant stuffed dog) and motioned with his hand for me to sit on the customer “chair” (a milk crate).
“Please have a seat, sir.”
“What is your business?” I asked.
“I’m a problem fixer,” he replied. “I can fix any problem at all.”
“That’s great, because I have lots of them.”
He held his hand out. “That will be one dollar please.”
“For each problem?” I asked.
“We have a sale. All problems for $1.”
I gave him the dollar and sat on the milk crate. He looked at me intently, ready and able to handle any problems I may send his way. He folded his hands on the desk.
“What can I do for you?”
“My biggest problem is that my sons fight all the time,” I said, calling the problem fixer’s bluff. “How do I fix that problem, Mr. Problem Fixer.”
He thought about that for a few seconds before replying, “Tell them to stop it. That’s what I tell my kids.”
“And they listen to you?”
“Yup.”
“Mine don’t listen. They still won’t stop.”
“Hmmm,” he said, grabbing the blank piece of paper from the top of his desk. He pretended to peruse it. “Let me check what the charts say. Oh! I see. It says here that you should give them a dollar.”
“If I give them a dollar, they’ll stop fighting?”
“Says so right on this chart,” he said.
“Thanks, Mr. Problem Fixer. I’ll keep that in mind.” With that, I got up to leave the “office.”
“Wait! You still haven’t asked about your biggest problem.”
I sat right back down on the milk crate. “OK, I’ll bite. What is my biggest problem.”
“Getting Tommy up in the morning.”
I raised my eyebrow at the troublemaker. “How do I fix that problem, Mr. Problem Fixer?”
“Give me a dollar and I’ll wake him up for you every single morning,” he said, an evil grin forming on his face.
“That’s a very generous offer,” I said, trying not to grin back. “You’d really do that for me?”
“I promise that he’ll hop right out of bed.”
Yeah, I bet he will. His big brothers don’t know it yet, but it won’t be long before they don’t stand a chance against this boy.
