April 23th was the officially recognized “Take your kid to Work Day”. In the past, I’ve taken both my sons several times but never my daughter Heather. She’s my little princess, the little girl who her mother says has me wrapped around her finger. I constantly tell her she’s my favorite daughter even though she’s my only daughter. She’s never questioned that which I’ve always found to be pretty funny. A few days before the 23rd I mentioned to Heather, jokingly, that she should spend the day with me and surprisingly she said yes! I thought she was a little old for this, but I said I would love to take you to the office for the day. At first, she was kind of excited, but things sort of changed the day before when I told her we need to leave by 7am, which means she needed to wake up by 6am. She kind of got cranky about that, actually she fought me on it tooth and nail, thinking about 10am sounded like a good time to go. I thought maybe she was just having one of her mood swings and I’m rarely the target of her extreme attitude during those times. This time though she screamed, stomped her feet and slammed her bedroom door. Of course, I did the appropriate thing and sent her mother in to deal with her. After a talk, she agreed to leave by 7am so I set her alarm for 6am, I heard it go off for 10 full minutes before I went in to wake her. I learned that morning, my little angel knew a few words that little girls should never use. I knew at this point I had to pull out the big guns so I promised her I would take her to McDonald’s for lunch and I would get her the happy meal with that girl from Frozen that she loves. I could tell she was considering my offer because she got kind of quiet. I then added a chocolate milk and not one, but two of those fresh made cookies they always have next to the cash register. That seemed to do it, because she started getting ready and in only an hour and a half, she was ready to go. Once at my office she played with some toys and then insisted on organizing my desk, it’s been a week and I still can’t find my stapler. And, when I left her alone for a few minutes with my computer she permanently deleted 4 files that I had been working on for weeks. I will admit I was pretty proud of her for the first couple of hours, she had made a few mistakes but all kids do. But about 9am she said she was bored and wanted to go to breakfast and have Bloody Mary’s. I said, Heather, I love you but you’re 21 years old, I’m thinking this might be our last “Take your kid to work day”.
Greg Rosen is a humor writer, Realtor, father and husband. Questions or comments are appreciated: [email protected]. If you like what you please share.