a powerfully true statement said in an incredibly sad way

i just saw a toys r us commercial that ended with the following statement that saddens me:

the only thing better than seeing joy on a child’s face is knowing that you put it there

in my opinion, the statement is very true. seeing joy on your child’s face and knowing that you were able to produce that joy is amazingly pleasing. just consider how hard people will work to produce a smile on the face of an infant. there is an immense sense of pride that comes from being the one who is able to bring a smile to a child’s face. i’m not sadden my the statement in and of itself because i agree with what it is saying.

what saddens me is the connection made between producing joy merely by buying something for the child. the whole commercial is about waking up early so that you can be the first to toys r us to buy the most sought after toys first. the implication is that if you rush to toys r us and obtain the most sought after toys then you will be able to produce joy within your child.

what a bunch of baloney.

toys don’t last and neither do the smiles that they produce. of course, toys r us isn’t going to tell anybody that. nope, toys r us (and walmart, target, etc) are going to try and convince people that buying things will bring the joy that parents want their children to have.

i saw a ton of smiles on the faces of my boys today and it had nothing to do with buying anything. instead, it involved having a b b gun shooting competition and involving them in a family wide game of trivial pursuit. my kids will remember this day for the rest of their lives. yet, toys r us wants us to think that buying something is what is most important.

don’t swallow the lie.

a side note
i watched the iron chef tonight for the first time in over a year. i had forgotten how much i loved this show. it is the wwe of the cooking world. i laugh just thinking about it. whose cuisine shall reign supreme?

the church must go on

i’m not sure why but apparently the church tradition within baton rouge is to cancel church for thanksgiving. almost every church does it. almost all wednesday night services are canceled through out the city. it just doesn’t make any sense. you have this holiday that is specifically designed to be about thanking our CREATOR and what do we do? we cancel all the services that are specifically about thanking HIM.

this completely confuses me.

which pill will you choose – matrix reference for a non-matrix entry

i’m presently at my parents’ house in mobile, alabama for thanksgiving. my parents house is not my home and therefore i basically not used to the things found within it. this morning when i went to the bathroom to take a shower i was faced with a enormous decision that i was not prepared for. the decision was between yellow and green soap. within my parents guest shower there are two different significantly used soaps. one is green and one is yellow. these soaps have both been used to the point that all markings have been washed off of them. for most people this wouldn’t be a problem because they would simply smell the individual soaps and be able to tell what they were. the problem here is that i have a pathetically inadequate sense of smell – which is a huge asset in working with middle school boys. i can’t smell anything except very strong smells.

so i reached out grabbed each soap and took a whiff. nothing. it was hopeless. which soap would i use. i guessed that the yellow soap was probably dial – a soap that i usually like – yet i wasn’t sure. the green soap was probably irish spring – my favorite soap of all times – but i had no way of knowing for sure. this was an important decision. if i chose the wrong soap it would throw off my whole day. irish spring would be great, dial would be okay, but what if it were another type of soap. surely there are other soaps that are green and yellow. this was all too much stress for a shower.

i chose green – i’m fairly sure that it was irish spring. of course, for all i know i could smell like anything right now.