MOM LORI: Charlotte is abusing my credit card.
POP GARRY: She’s 13 years old. What is she buying? T-shirts from Abercrombie? Stuff from EBgames?
MOM LORI: Can you believe iTunes? Music for her iPod.
POP GARRY: Well, what is her allowance?
MOM LORI: She doesn’t have one.
POP GARRY: What? That’s crazy. Bad parenting.
MOM LORI: May I point out that when I was a child living in your house I didn’t get an allowance.
POP GARRY: And that, my child, is the biggest mistake of my life. The biggest regret. The biggest lament. The biggest disappointment.
MOM LORI: All right, all right. I get it. But why?
POP GARRY: Because you and your sister and brother don’t understand the value of a dollar.
MOM LORI: That’s not true. We all have mortgages. We have jobs. We pay our bills on time. We don’t run up our credit cards.
POP GARRY: Sure but when we go to Hawaii for Christmas and they charge us $10 for a side of cream cheese or $14 for a single glass of chardonnay you kids don’t even blink.
MOM LORI: That’s because you are paying.
POP GARRY: Why should I always pay?
MOM LORI: The Grandpa always pays.
POP GARRY: What about when I move to the retirement home?
MOM LORI: Then I’ll pay. But getting back to this issue of allowance, why is it my fault that you didn’t teach me about money. You should have put me on an allowance.
POP GARRY: I know. But your mother was so poor when she was a kid that she didn’t want her own kids to ever worry or stress out about money. But frankly, I should have insisted. I should have given you an allowance and made you do chores or wait tables. Were you ever a waitress?
MOM LORI: No, but I worked at Crate & Barrel and registered brides for Calphalon pots. Kathi worked at Häagen-Dazs and became the store manager at 16, and she hired Scott at 15.
POP GARRY: What other work did your brother do in high school?
MOM LORI: Scott was a dater. He worked at dating. Does that count?
POP GARRY: No. I should have made him do something in retail. When you work in retail, people tend to yell at you and you have to learn to take it. That builds character.
MOM LORI: Getting back to Charlotte. If I decide to give her an allowance, how much should I give her?
POP GARRY: What does an iTune cost?
MOM LORI: About 99 cents.
POP GARRY: Cheap. I like it. Peppy and cheap. You know how much your mother got for her allowance when she was growing up in Ohio?
“When my sister Penny was on Laverne & Shirley, our father withheld her paycheck because she was fresh with him.
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MOM LORI: How much?
POP GARRY: A quarter. And to get extra money she would collect soda-pop bottles. She got two cents per bottle and returned them to the market. She would try to collect enough pop bottles to make 25 cents, which was the price of a ticket at the Sunday movie matinee.
MOM LORI: Movie tickets are about $10 to $12 now. That’s a lot of soda-pop bottles.
POP GARRY: Once you decide how much to give her, then decide whether you should tie it to chores or not.
MOM LORI: I heard someone say you should tie it to their age. So a 10-year-old should get $10 a week.
POP GARRY: Sounds good. And if they don’t do their chores you can punish them and say, “I’m taking away your allowance.” When my sister Penny was a big star, my dad was one of the producers of Laverne & Shirley. One day he withheld her paycheck. When I asked why he said, "She was fresh with me." Thousands of dollars withheld because a child was fresh with her dad. It works. Eventually he paid her when she sweetened up.
MOM LORI: Charlotte is not a sitcom star. What kind of chores should she do?
POP GARRY: Your mother scrubbed floors, did laundry, raked leaves, picked green beans from the field, and cut up ice with a pick.
MOM LORI: An ice pick? She chopped ice with a pick?! That sounds so dangerous. Who does that kind of thing?
POP GARRY: Kids desperate for an allowance so they can go to the movies, that’s who. But my point is that your mother was so poor that it taught her never to spend money like a drunken sailor.
MOM LORI: But what could Charlotte do for a chore? I don’t own an ice pick.
POP GARRY: She could cook dinner.
MOM LORI: Mac and cheese?
POP GARRY: Good. Add ketchup. It makes everything better. I also think she should get a job.
MOM LORI: But she’s 13 years old. Who would hire her?
POP GARRY: My first job was as a fox-face stuffer.
MOM LORI: Remind me what that strange and antiquated job was?
POP GARRY: In the old days women wore fox stoles when they went out to a fancy dinner. I worked in the factory where they made the fox stoles. It was my job to shove a piece of cardboard into the nose of the fox to make its nose look cute instead of saggy. I got paid 65 cents an hour.
MOM LORI: She can’t do that. And besides, women don’t wear fox stoles today. They would get blood thrown on them by animal-rights fanatics.
POP GARRY: I was also a supermarket bagger. Then I delivered newspapers. What about a newspaper route?
MOM LORI: Dad, everybody gets their news online. Hard copy is so old school.
POP GARRY: That’s me Mr. Old School. Mr. Nostalgia. Mr. Happy Days.
MOM LORI: You still don’t have a computer do you?
POP GARRY: My secretary does. She prints out the good stuff.
MOM LORI: Okay. So I think what you are saying is, "Yes, she should have an allowance, it should be a small amount, and it should be tied to chores," right?
POP GARRY: Sounds good. And one more thing.
MOM LORI: What?
POP GARRY: Give her a raise in her allowance during the month of November.
MOM LORI: What for?
POP GARRY: My birthday is November 13 and I want her to buy her grandpa a very nice gift.
MOM LORI: Fine, you give me the money and I will give her the raise.
POP GARRY: The Grandpa always pays.
