The Po Show

What's Really Important

The other night, Ross and I went to Parents' Night at Matthew's school. It went great and it was nice to meet the other parents in the class. Since the kids in this school come from all over the county (and other counties as well; some come all the way from the city), there aren't many opportunities to do so.

But I wanted to recount the story of a conversation that took place while we were gone. We left the kids with our friends who live near Matthew's school, who are very long-time friends from our UCLA days. We actually knew Preston before he was with Jill, as he was in Ross' cohort in Poli Sci. We went to their wedding in Kansas City (along with Matthew, who was 13 months at the time). They have two boys between my kids in age and a baby girl who's just over a year old.

When we got back to their house, Preston told us that the three boys had been sitting at the table together, and his two had asked Matthew why he was now going to school near where they live. Matthew answered that he was going to a new school this year, but didn't give any reasons as to why. They asked, "So, your new school, is it better...or worse?"

"It's better than my old school," Matthew immediately answered. But then he paused and said, "But at my old school, there were SEVEN VENDING MACHINES." The other boys were duly impressed. Then Matthew went on to describe, in great detail, what was available in each of the vending machines.

The funniest part of that? He never once, in his four years at that school, ever actually BOUGHT anything from the vending machines. But I guess that does not diminish their cachet in any way.