Have you heard of the marshmallow test?

At breakfast this morning I was telling dad about it. He imagined that it would probably be harder for kids today to feel the need to wait for instant gratification, but that for folks of his generation, impulse control was probably not too very hard.

Now, good, bad or indifferent, my way with my dad is I tend to disagreed with him on most everything, just for the sake of argument. Usually, when he says blue – I say green or purple or sometimes  seven. Anything to challenge his thinking and cement our different outlooks in the world. I find this also tends to create conversation over lecture and well, apparently, I could use a hobby. 🙂

A few hours later when he mentioned that I better get up to the post office before the noon crowd, so I could mail the stack of letters he has waiting on the table, I told him I probably wouldn’t be going up town today, and that they may have to wait until tomorrow to go out.

He stared at me, looked at his watch twice, paced a little, and then visibly started shaking. Maybe I was a little mean when I took glee in the opportunity for conversation, and I might have mentioned something about marshmallows and his generation.

I should learn to knit.