"Imagine a one grape economy"
So when Noelle and I were first dating, I was pursuing a degree in Political Science (4.5 years of learning how to bullshit, has clearly stood me in good stead), and Noelle was studying a double major in Political Science and Economics. Several "cute" phrases survive from that time.

These include the famous "Love is a barter economy", and the "Imagine a one product economy." One day a friend of mine (who's name now totally escapes me) was complaining about the Intro to Economics course he was taking (cause he needed the credits), and the incredibly inane exercise the professor used to introduce some very basic topics in Economic Theory, i.e. Supply and Demand, basic curves, and so on. This exercise was "Imagine a one product economy."

It struck me as a spectacularly useless exercise, and I've been using it ever since to describe a variety of odd or futile situations.

So this evening, we began teaching Isaac the basics of Supply and Demand. Econ 101 if you will.

In our house, there is a rule. Each book only gets read three times in a row, before you have to choose a new book. This prevents both the books, and mommy and daddy's brains, from getting too tattered.

Isaac, however, has discovered a loophole. The rule only applies to one parent at a time. So he brings the book to Mommy, gets his three readings, and then careens across the floor (he's not a toddler, he's a careener) to Daddy, to get the next three. Or vice versa.

So this evening, he was just about out of readings of one of the most inane books he owns. It's called "Down at the farm." The story is blindingly dull..."Let's go look at Cow. Can you tell what colours she is?", and it's only redeeming feature, is that the images of the animals are in black and white, but when you slide the little tab, the image of the animal pulls out, and appears in colour. We bought it for him to survive a long car or plane journey somewhere, and every once in a while he latches on to it, and it becomes a favorite for a few days.

So as I said, he had exhausted three readings with Mommy, and another three with Daddy (who admittedly raced through the last one), and decided to 'give it a go' at getting another three. He goes back to Mommy and says "Read again", and Mommy says, "Bring me a grape." There was a bowl of grapes near me, so he careens back, grabs one, and careens over to Mommy and hands it to her. She eats it, and dutifully reads the book.

At this point, I imagine a one product economy. Where the only product is a service, namely reading of a book, and at this point supply is running out, but demand is still quite high. He has expended all his capital (namely goodwill and general cuteness), and now needs an influx of currency (concord grapes). Fortunately, one of his two vendors names their price, and he gets his increased supply in return for an increased cost.

So Noelle finishes reading the book and says "Bring me another grape?" It takes him a few seconds, but he figures it out, and goes and gets another one, and looks up with big blue eyes and says "Read again?" Noelle starts reading again, and then it dawns on Isaac. He has a huge pool of capital sitting on the Ottoman, and he needs to liquidate it fast. So he goes and gets the whole bowl, and plops it down beside Noelle...clearly expecting a whole bunch more readings of this literary classic.

So at the beginning of this post, I mentioned that one of the most enduring phrases of our courtship is "love is a barter economy," but it appears that this applies not only to me getting fishing weekends with Jeremy, or Noelle getting the latest Gourmet Magazine, but also extends to Isaac, and whatever he wants at the time.

I should mention that he is soon discovering that excessive whining can lead to sudden insolvency. But that's a story for another day.