Operation Control Impulses

Again, control your thoughts you dirty readers.  I am not speaking of any of 'those' impulses!

Certainly one of the rights of passage for one to ensure that the proverbial ‘corner has been turned’ from child-like behaviors to adulthood is that pesky issue of impulse control.

This society is facing a minor crisis in that we as Americans find it almost impossible to control our impulses.  Be it the late-night infomercial spending sprees, the scandalous adulterous behavior found in conjunction with various online websites,  or simply not able to control yourself from buying that oh so tempting candy bar while in line at the grocery store.

This has become such an issue that it has become a recognized mental disorder amongst the wacky world of psychologists and others who proclaim various treatments… for the low price of 4 monthly installments of $39.95.

So why on earth is impulse control an issue for an expectant father, you may ask?  Well let me explain the recent outing my normally frugal wife and I experience last weekend.

With my recent promotion at work, I now get to experience the pleasure of working ‘shift’ hours and thus have changed my normally scheduled weekends to that of Sunday and Monday being my days off.  So naturally, the only coordinated time off we have currently is that of blessed non-working Sabbath, Sunday for those using layman’s terms.

As such, we decided to delight ourselves with a Sunday movie at one of the local malls.  As a side note, we saw the movie The Help and I would highly recommend it to others.  After finishing the movie, Shannon decides to drop the ‘bomb’ on me by asking if we could stop by one of the national baby box-stores.  Much to my dismay, I was unable to resist the pouty-lipped pregnant one and fight as I may; I ultimately turned the steering wheel in that direction although I do admit that there was an electronics store in the vicinity.

Now mind you that we have already registered for every conceivable gadget known to baby but I guess the ‘baby vehicle’ wanted to see if there was anything we possibly could have overlooked although I ensured her that we had registered for all we needed plus the partridge in a pear tree but she was undeterred.  Luckily I am in a profession in which ‘glazed’ is a popular term cause that is exactly what happened to my eyes as we strode in to the store.

While she was basking the glory that is everything baby, I was bound to find the nearest exit or anything resembling masculinity to reclaim what I must have lost years ago.  As we finished with our perceived window-shopping trip, we (although she is to really receive the credit for the find) stumbled upon one of those scarce deals that parents love to find and make it all but impossible to ignore.

What we found was a stroller designed to compete with the one we had originally envisioned for the wee one.  The original stroller we pined for was the Baby Jogger City Mini due to its various features of convenience and usability.  What we found was that Britax, known for their outstanding safety ratings, had devised a new stroller to steer people, like me, away from our wants into their new B-Agile stroller. 

This stroller is the chicken’s cluck, the rooster’s crow, or the mother-to-be’s smile in that it has all the bells and whistles and is certain to make this man happy.

What made this an issue of impulse control was that there was never any intention on purchasing a stroller in the near future but instead to wait until the time got closer for baby birthing.  So instead of me only being a willing participant to a window shopping spree turned into an issue of me relinquishing control of the plastic contained within my wallet.

Now I must admit the deal we got was pretty spectacular in that we not only got the stroller but also a baby car seat and extra base for $200 less than what we would have paid to get the stroller we had originally intended.  I like most other domesticated male members of society still don’t quite understand the logic of spending X amount of dollars in order to save Y amount.

So I put to you other men out there, what impulses have you been wrangled into because of parenthood?  Let it also be noted that I never did make it to the electronics store.