Pancake and Waffle (Part 1)

Oh! It’s-ah… Pancake and Waffle! Pancake and Waffle! Hamster services! [record halt sound] Wait… that’s not right.  Let me start over.

I think I described in the past that I wrote a Book of Challenges for my son.  In case I didn’t mention it, the book is a list of accomplishments (outside of the usual “make your bed” or “get good grades” or “please for the love of God clean the toothpaste off your sink – the hammer and chisel are in the usual place”) that he could do in order to earn rewards of some kind. 

Picture earning a merit badge except usually much harder and/or more time consuming.  The harder the challenge the larger the reward. A one-star challenge would earn something fairly cheap while a five-star challenge would have a more substantial payout.

Examples?  Sure.  Back when he was five he wanted Minecraft because the older kids at school were playing it.  In order to earn that one he had to be able to ride his bike well enough to circumnavigate the church twice without stopping – this involved transitioning from his usual comfort zone of freshly paved roads and cul-du-sacs to dealing with hills, grass, mole-holes, sand, and gravel. Thusly, Minecraft poofed into existence on the Xbox.  Other challenges have included solo-riding a fairly intense rollercoaster, earning various colored belts in karate, sinking 50 free-throws in a single basketball practice session,  and running a mile fast enough to earn the Presidential certification at school.

Get it? Got it.  Good.

One day this past fall he asked if he could get some hamsters for Christmas.  I groaned a little and struggled to come up with a way of saying “Pfft. Nope.” that resulted in no follow-up questions or begging. I was moderately against it just because I figured it would be a hassle. The wife immediately started publishing a highly pejorative and unnecessarily foul-mouthed Anti-Hamster newsletter which she then distributed to the neighbors while getting them all to sign a “NIMBY” petition against any future rodent ownership by my son.  She was just about to take out a full-page ad in the local paper railing against quote plague-ridden stink-bags unquote when I said “Look, let’s just make this a challenge – if he earns them he earns them.”  She tentatively agreed.

Since he hadn’t touched his guitar in years I gave him the challenge of completing three Rocksmith 2014 songs of his choosing at a 90% or higher level.  Once he learned them to that level of goodness he would then have to play them all in one night (a mini concert for me and the wife) while hitting 90% on all of them.

Up until that point the only thing he had experience with on that game were two practice arcade games.  “String Skip Saloon” teaches you to hit different strings (no fretting) in order to shoot banditos coming to wreck up your bar, and “Ducks Redux” is a game where you play the right notes order to shoot electronic ducks.  But, like I said, that was a couple of years ago. I told him not to jump into the songs right away.  Create a new account and start from scratch.

(To be continued...)