Over the weekend, we visited the Georgia Aquarium. We had a great time enjoying all the animals and fish. We saw amazing creatures we had never seen before. Personally, it was a special time to remember how awesome and creative God is. I felt rewarded as a parent because our older kids repeatedly told Karl “thank you” for taking them to the aquarium. I just don’t hear “thank you” enough, so hearing thank you three or four times within a span of a few hours felt especially fantastic.

Karl and I were thinking we had made the right decision. We had done something that made everyone in the family happy. Not wanting to be too obvious, we were high-fiving each other with just our eyes. You know what I’m talking about…the look you have between you and your spouse that says, “YES! We are awesome!”

We were cruising towards the exit when we realized that our dreams of a perfect family outing were about to come crashing down. Our nightmare: the exit sign and the gift shop sign are one and the same. This is an evil strategy of all zoo, museum, fun park, and aquarium owners to force patrons into the gift shop. The sign could have read: “You are about to enter the time warp portion of our aquarium in which the past four hours of bliss and joy will be utterly forgotten in about five minutes.”

So that even though our children were so thankful to even go to the aquarium, their sin natures were awakened as we left because they saw miniature, take-home versions of everything under the sea. Karl and I locked our eyes on the bright shining light at the end of the dark aquarium merchandise tunnel–the door. The kids, on the other hand, were sucked into the plush piles of doom. “Thank you, Daddy! This was so fun!” turned into something like this:

They ran to us extending all kinds of oceanic, fishy cuteness. Oh, the begging was monumental. How did Karl put a stop to it? You need a little history. Back in December he opened savings accounts for each child. With birthdays and Christmas monies, they all have a good bit of cash saved up. He showed them how to use their bank books, then he showed them how, with just a few clicks on the computer, he can transfer money from their accounts to ours. So when the whining started, he simply said, “I paid for your ticket to see the aquarium. You don’t need any of those stuffed animals. You already have something similar, anyway. But if you really want it I can get it for you, then I’ll transfer money from your bank account to mine. Do you want to spend your own money?” They didn’t need more than a moment or two to decide that they didn’t really want that cute, stuffed, $25 beluga whale. Even I managed to walk past the souvenir coffee cups without twitching. Praise God, we all made it out of there still feeling happy about our day.