Peanut: Mom, when I’m a grownup I’m not going to work.
Me: Oh, yeah? What are you going to do?
P: I’m gonna sit around. Maybe read books. And sit around.
M: Hmm. Well, how are you going to get money to pay for heat and water and a place to live and food?
P: And a car.
M: And a car.
P: Well, I’ll just take the money.
M: From whom?
P: Who?
M: From whom?
P: From stores.
M: Oh. Then the stores won’t have money to buy things to put in the stores, and won’t have money to pay the workers.
P: I won’t take all their money. Just some.
M: Oh. Well, maybe you should have a backup plan, because taking is not okay, and a judge will put you in prison if you take money from stores.
P: …
M: So what’s your plan for after you get out of prison?
P: I know. You know when sometimes people drop money and don’t know they dropped it and it’s okay to take it if nobody knows whose money it is?
M: Yup.
P: I’ll just find money like that.
M: …
P: Then I won’t have to go to work.
M: Pea, you might want to have a backup plan for that one, too…
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NaptimeWriting 
If Peanut finds a way to make that work, let me know! I’d love to just sit around and read books and have money fall in my lap!
Your kid is awesome! Such an imagination! :)
Believe me, db, when he proposed the sitting around and reading books while taking money from stores, I pondered the feasibility. When he suggested a full living could be had just finding money, I was ready to call his 1-800-number to pay $49.95 and find out how. It sounds mighty good to me, too.
Hey, if he wants to sit around all day reading books, maybe a budding book editor? Whose to say?
Prowling the streets to find dropped cash sounds like a super-stressful job to me. “Only nine more dimes and I can eat today…” His prison idea actually might work–go white collar and he can pretty much just sit around and read books all day as desired. However, I think Peanut should consider a career as a trophy husband.
Maria, I told him about book critics and book editors. We’ll see.
Pander, he will make some man or woman very happy, except all the shooting…
He can find change left in vending machines. Or take up pan handling.
He should marry a supermodel: spend all her cash, since she’s never home. Lots of time flying to visit her, he can read books on planes. She never eats, so plenty of extra cash laying around for heat, water and things to turn into shooters.
Problem solved!
I *heart* Peanut. His imagination makes me smile. It also fills me with a sense of relief that I won’t have the only child finding money for a living.
My daughter got the same idea when she watched a couple comb the beach with metal detectors. She questioned them about how much they found, and what they did with the money, and asked them to find her a necklace.
She’s still waiting for that necklace to arrive…
I’m lovin’ Peanut’s dream job. Add some crack cheese rolls into the equation, and I’m in!
Hey, that’s MY backup plan too! I am going to have a great career as a money finder. Great minds…
Peanut rocks. And I think I’m going to look into the finding-money career path myself. He’s brilliant!
faemom, he already checks vending machines but I will definitely tell him about panhandling. because *that* is a conversation I want to have. ;-)
letmestart, you’re a freaking genius. I can’t wait to have a supermodel in-law. Because, finally, someone won’t complain about vegan Thanksgiving…
ck, he has a metal detector. He wanted one so desperately, and we told him we couldn’t find one, and then Butter came home from the hospital with one all wrapped for Peanut. So he’ll get ONE her necklace.
TKW, I bought two rolls today. Just because I can. I think I could end all wars if I just gave both sides those rolls.
Fie, I’ll tell him teaching Shakespeare should be his backup. If only I could switch him from shooting to stabbing, he’d be set.
Ink, I’ve been hoping I could be his role model as a money finding do-nothing-er, but I’m kind of a failure at both thus far. I’ll keep trying, though. Good luck to you on your quest to do nothing and find money. At least one of us should succeed at one of those pursuits. Because both fit our personalities, right?
i like peanut. and would like to strive to achieve his utopian vision of not working. i’ve only been doing it again these past 6 months, and i can tell ya, i wasn’t missing anything (other than adult human interaction, which isn’t all that anyway). discussions about where to find the next few cents to ear are far more interesting than discussions about hiring freezes and printers. is he hiring? i’ll steal my dad’s metal detector and we can start the search for gold.
to eat, rather. not to ear.
ha ha ha. Nobody ever used “teaching Shakespeare” as a backup plan. That would be … oh… that would be me.
(Teaching Shakespeare is my backup plan for being a world-famous writer, of course. My backup plan needs about thirteen additional backup plans.)
j, I’m witchya. Conversations about printers are not just mindnumbing…they’re mind eroding. Not unlike cardboard shooters, but less fun.
LOL, Fie. I have thirteen backup plans to my world-famous writer plan, and have tried all. They’re meh and don’t pay well enough to justify dropping the dream. Still holding out hope on either finding money or massive publishing fame. Or the Queen of the Universe job, in which I ban leaf blowers and croutons. But that was a different post.
Right! And when I discover the secret to doing nothing and making money, I promise to share it with you.
Smart kid. That’s what I want to do too. I have to say though: (and I may get flamed for this…) if he were a girl, chances of him getting this dream job of his would not have been nil. Just sayin’
Yeah, I am in a bitter mood. Sorry.
See it always starts with a dream right? I wouldn’t mind having no job and sitting around all day reading and doing nothing. In fact, that sounds pretty great. And kinda like grad school. Which was AWESOME btw, in case Peanut is interested. But I guess that cost money too. It’s just that I’m paying for it now, years and years and YEARS later. (And there’s still plenty more later where that came from too, unfortunately. But you don’t have to tell Peanut about that part. I don’t want to burst his bubble. It’s too cute.)
subWOW, panderbear says he should be a trophy husband, which I think would be worthy of the feminist I’m raising him to be.
Organic, he knows mama loved grad school and wants to go back. He says it sounds like too much work and not enough movies. Also seems goal-oriented to him, which I’m getting the idea is not his core value. Also the money thing, though when he learns about credit and loans we’re in BIG trouble.