an offer she couldn't refuse...

"All this for only $4.95!"

I'm guessing it won't be the last time...but for the first time, one of my kids succumbed to the influence of a well-placed print advertisement.

Recently, Madelynne picked up the mail from the little box by our front door and came running in excitedly. "Mom, mom...can I get this? Can I get this PLEASE???"

Me: "Well, what is it?"

Madelynne: "It's the Pony Book Club. I've always wanted to be in the Pony Book Club!"

Me: "Really? I had no idea."

Madelynne: "Mom. It says here, 'You get ALL this for only $4.95! American Dream Horses - 80 pages with beautiful color photographs and facts about horses; Diablo, My Dream Horse - A wonderful and exciting horse story; A collectible figurine of PONY Book Club's rescue horse, Chica; a horse poster of Chica; the PONY Magazine; AND...an exclusive PONY watch!'"

Me: [Sigh] "Do you know how much $4.95 is?"

Madelynne: "Yes. Yes! I have $5.00 in my piggy bank."

Me: "If you REALLY want it, then you can go get your $5.00 and we'll send it in. OK?"

So it was set. Madelynne was about to join the Pony Book Club.

She dug out a crumpled up 5-dollar bill and handed it over. For the next three days, she hounded us to fill out the little postcard so she could send it in. Finally, we filled it out, taking care to add the special horse sticker so she would get her "free" watch, and made sure not to forget the "additional free gift if returned in 10 days" sticker. Literally within seconds of placing the card in the mailbox, Madelynne was running around the house exclaiming, "I can't WAIT for my stuff to come!!!" We need to explain how the postal system works here.

After a few weeks of waiting and wondering, the package finally arrived. There was quite the hoop-lah...now I just need to figure out how to explain to her that I'm planning on cancelling her "membership" to avoid all of those "future shipments"!